House vs The Vampires
by Ingram
Summary: When Alice collapses into an unexplainable coma, the Cullen's may be forced to seek out the best doctor of diagnostic medicine in the world. And how will the irascible, misanthropic Dr House handle the angsty vampire coven? Not very well, I Imagine.
1. Strange Occurences

Olympic National forest, near the town of Forks.

A small elk wanders through the thick forest, cautiously picking its way through the moss covered trees as a driving rain pours down, thick enough to penetrate to the ground through the dense canopy of leaves and branches overhead. It stops, bending its head downward to nibble at something on the forest floor.

The elks ear twitches; it heard what sounded like soft, slow footsteps from somewhere nearby. The sound come closer, and the does head snaps up. The animal carefully swept its eyes around the green world around it, trying to find the source of the footsteps that had startled it.

A twig snapped nearby, and the doe suddenly blots away from the sound, its hoofs churning up the soft moss that covered the ground as it makes a break for safety. Form behind the fleeing animal, a feral snarl erupts and a creature flings itself forward at blinding speed, intent on the kill.

It was tackled out of the air in mid pounce by a creature that seemed to move at an even more impossible speed.

The mountain lion snarls in fury and swiped at its attacker with its razor sharp claws, but its struggle quickly ended as it neck was yanked sharply to the side, breaking it cleanly.

The massive cat twitched a few more times, than went still.

The last thing he saw was his killer, a very fragile looking human female with short black hair bringing her mouth down to his neck before sinking her teeth in it.

"Alice, you can be such a _brat_."

The girl looked up from her meal; the mountain lion blood smeared across her mouth seemed to glint as she smiled back at her bronze haired brother.

"To bad, so sad Edward. Besides you think I'd let this guy kill poor Bambi just so you could catch up first?"

Edward rolled his eyes at his younger sister,

"How can something so small…" he began,

"…be so annoying?" Alice finished.

Edward rolled his dark eyes at his sister.

"Well I'm still hungry, so if you're not going to share…"

Alice raised an eyebrow before going back to the mountain lions neck.

Edward shook his head and huffed as the tangy scent of the mountain lions blood filled his nostrils.

"I think I'm in the mood for elk, anyway" he said, before running off in the direction the doe had been running.

"Jerk!" Alice shouted after him, before draining the rest of the mountain lions blood and standing up.

"You can be just a little sick sometimes, you know that?"

Alice turned to find another vampire darting through the trees towards her. The newcomer gracefully came to a stop next to Alice and the remains of her meal.

"Sorry." Alice said, sounding abashed, "Sometimes we do treat this as a game, don't we?" she asked her newest sister.

Bella sighed heavily before looking over at her sister,

"You already know I forgive you, right?"

"Of course I do. But it's best to keep up appearances." Alice said, smiling.

Bella sent her friend a dubious look before taking a deep breathe. She held it in for a few moments before taking off after Edward;

"I guess I'll have to settle for Bambi's mom, right?" she called of her shoulder.

"Now who's the sick one?" Alice shouted back.

Bella laughed as she disappeared into the deep woods.

Shaking her head in wonder, Alice took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped the blood from around her mouth.

Suddenly, she stopped and stood frozen, her topaz eyes going blank. She was rigid for a few moments, and then slowly some sense returned to her eyes and she looked around the clearing slowly,

"Oh my," she whispered, "This is going to get very ugly."

And then the small female vampire fell limply to the ground, her still wide eyes staring senselessly up at the sky.

Over a hundred miles away, at one of Seattle's most prestigious teaching hospitals, a bored looking man with a rumpled suit and gaunt, imposing features stared dubiously onwards with ice blue eyes as a doctor in a white lab used a PowerPoint presentation and a chemical model to demonstrate a new treatment for autoimmune disorders.

"This is a complete and _utter_ waste of time." he grouched to the dark haired woman sitting next to him in the packed auditorium.

"I'm sorry if you think learning about new treatments is a waste of time, Dr. House." she whispered harshly.

House sent the woman a jaundiced glare,

"When did I ever give you the impression I care about treatment? When I last looked, all the doctorates on my walls all said Diagnostic Medicine on them, which last time I checked, means I'm supposed to diagnose people, not treat them. But how should I know? I printed 'em off the internet anyway."

Dr. Cuddy rolled her eyes,

"If you could look past your misanthropic disdain for actually treating your patients for a moment, you might remember that you're scheduled to speak at this symposium of _diagnostic medicine_ the day after tomorrow. Which is why you're here."

"No, I'm here because you…_shanghaied_ me into giving a speech to all these idiots."

"Oh, I did not shanghai you into anything, House."

"You threatened to pull my clearances if I didn't do this. Again."

"And if you just pretended to act like a normal doctor and fulfill your obligations _just once_ maybe I wouldn't have had to do that. Now shush, I'm trying to hear."

House opened his mouth to keep arguing, but was silenced by a particularly venomous glare from Cuddy.

Sulking, house reached into his suit coat and pulled out a bottle of vicodin. He opened it and popped one of the white pills in his mouth, before washing it down with a swig from the soda can sitting on the arm rest of his seat.

He glanced across the isle and saw that a doctor across the aisle was staring at him.

"Care for one?" house asked offering the bottle of painkillers,

"No, thank you."

"You sure? It might bring some color to your face?"

Cuddy glanced over and found her cantankerous employee was talking to a young looking doctor with strikingly pale skin, and blond hair.

"House! Stop it." she hissed, whacking him on the leg.

"Hey, just cause you brought me doesn't mean I have to play nice with the other kids."

Cuddy rolled her eyes and turned to apologize to the other doctor.

Before she could say anything, he pulled a cell phone out of his jacket and flipped it open.

"Jasper I told you all that I'd be busy all day…what do you mean?...how long?"

Cuddy frowned; the unknown doctor sounded worried. All at once he began speaking very fast too fast for her to keep up.

House glanced over as well.

Suddenly, the blond doctor shot to his feet and rushed out the door.

Cuddy and House looked at each other.

"What was that about?" House asked.

"Maybe he had to see a patient."

House looked dubious,

"Come on…who rushes off that quickly to talk to sick people?"

"Not falling for it, House."

"Fine." House grunted, before pulling out a sleek black MP3 player and tucking the head phones into his ears, "Did you know they have all the seasons of General Hospital on The Pirate Bay now?"

"You illegally downloaded every season?" Cuddy asked, incredulously.

"Yeah. But don't worry, I used the computer in the pediatrics lounge so the feds won't trace it back to me." House cocked his head "Funny how the morons in our government can't find an Arab guy who lives in a cave but they can nail spotty teenagers for downloading a few Britney songs without paying, isn't it?'

Cuddy rolled her eyes again.

Outside, the hospitals parking garage, Carlisle Cullen slammed the door of his Mercedes behind him and quickly started the engine. As the engine roared to life, he continued to speak on his cell phone to his desperate adopted son,

"Jasper, please, try to stay calm."

On any other day, telling the mood altering vampire to remain calm might seem ironic. But not today.

"She just collapsed in the forest? What were you doing?"

Carlisle slammed the car in gear and began to speed through the garage.

"Did anyone collect the mountain lion?...have Edward and Bella try and locate the corpse, please. I'm going to need to run some tests…I see. Well ask Emmet or Rosalie to do it, then. Than you. I'm on my way…and Jasper? I'm sorry." Carlisle snapped the phone shut and tossed it unto the leather passenger seat of the Mercedes with enough force that it bounced off and smacked into the side door.

Carlisle shook his head in frustration, even as he rushed back to Forks.

His daughter had slipped into a coma.

With seemingly no discernable cause, and against all odds, her nearly invincible vampire body had stopped working.

And he had no idea why.


	2. The Plan

_Authors Note: Remember kids, reading and reviewing is fun! Also, sorry this took me so long to write, been down and out with a cold for week. Nasty times…_

"Isn't there _anything_ else you can do?" Jasper demanded, desperation filling his normally calm voice as he sat next to his comatose wife.

The immortal doctor shook his head,  
"I'm afraid not, Jasper…the test I could try, I've already done. If…if she were human, I could do more, X-rays, MRI's, blood tests, a dozen other things. But her skin, her bones, even her venom prevent any of those from working."

Jasper let out a moan that was equal parts frustration and pain before resting his head on Alice's shoulder.

They were in Alice's and Jasper room in the Cullen's mansion, with the pixie-like vampire lying on a heretofore decorative bed, motionless as a statue, while her family stood around her, unsure of what to do next.

Carlisle turned to his eldest son,

"You can still hear her thoughts, Edward?" he asked.

"Yes…her mind is still active, but she's can't hear us. Her thoughts are…random, but they're still there. She's still with us, in some way."

Carlisle nodded,

"I don't think Alice's life is at risk." hr frowned at an unpleasant memory, "The Volturi have tried for centuries to find a way to kill immortals in a more…efficient way. They never discovered anything."

"So?" Jasper almost shouted, "One of our kind has never fallen into a coma with no apparent cause before either, yet here we stand!"

"Japer, please try and…"

"Screw you, Carlisle." Jasper ground out, still sitting at Alice's side, one of his stricken lover hands clamped in his.

The Cullen's gaped at him; they'd never heard the southern gentleman utter a single curse before. He'd never shown defiance to Carlisle or Esme. it was ironic that in the Olympic Coven, Jasper, the one with the longest history of violence, had always been the best behaved.

And as Jasper started to crack under the strain, the rest of the Cullens let their own desperation show.

Edward watched Bella's face, his features almost a mirror image of her expression of pain as she watched her best friend lay unresponsive on her bed, with the rest of the family helpless to do anything, or even to understand why.

Rosalie and Emmet were downstairs, unable to fit in Jasper and Alice's small room along with the rest of the family, but the normally gregarious Emmet's silence was speaking volumes.

Jacob had taken Renessmee to La Push; his insane, imprinting driven desire to protect her from any and all malign influences having driven him to try and shield her from her aunt's predicament, as well as its effect on her family. Neither Edward or Bella had tried to interfere; they were as eager to protect their daughter as he was, especially what had happened to Alice was some kind of bizarre new disease that could afflict even vampires.

And Esme, who looked even more afflicted than Jasper, had not left her daughters room since Edward and Bella had brought her back from their ill-fated hunting trip.

And Carlisle, with all of his centuries of learning proving to be useless, was trying desperately to find a solution, wracking his hyper-intelligent vampire mind for something, anything to try and bring his daughter back into the waking world.  
Edward followed along with his "talent", frowning as Carlisle kept coming up fewer and fewer options, until finally, he shot to his feet.

"Who was that?" he demanded, gazing at his father, eyes wide with surprise.

"Who was who?" Carlisle, asked, his curiosity at his sons sudden outburst breaking him from his mind-racking search for a solution.

"That man you were just thinking about…in the…theatre?"

Carlisle cocked his head to one side,

"I was just thinking about the diagnostic medicine seminar I was at, trying to think of a new treatment that might help…"

"But…that man, who was he?"

Bella, Jasper and Esme watched the byplay between father and son carefully, a glimmer of interest braking through their fear and hopelessness.

"Who? The one giving the lecture?"

"No, the angry one with the cane." Edward frowned in concentration, running through Carlisle thoughts as the immortal surgeon thought back to the seminar he'd been at before rushing home to care for Alice, "He was sitting across the aisle from you, with a woman who looked like mother…"

Carlsile looke surprised,

"The man who was taking Vicodin like it was candy amd listening to an MP3 player?" Carlisle demanded, shocked.

"Yes!" Edward said, features alight with excitement, "That's him."

"But why…"

"Alice is thinking of him. In fact, his face has been in her thoughts almost continuously since her…ordeal…began."

"But why?" Bella asked, looking down at Alice's still form, "Is it a vision, or did she meet this doctor before?"

"No, I'd never seen him in her thoughts before. I think…no, it's not possible."

"What?" Jasper demanded, getting up, "What do you see?"

"I think he's the one who can help her."

"But how could a human now how to help _us_?" Rosalie demanded from downstairs; she and Emmet had apparently been following the conversation; their powerful vampire hearing picking up every word even from a different part of the house.

"I don't know. But I think that's what her mind is trying to tell us, subconsciously at least."

"Then she can hear us?" Esme asked, her voice eager.

"I'm not sure…I haven't picked up any sign of it."

"But it'd be dangerous to bring an outsider into this." Carlsile protested, "Especially a human. If we do, especially if it's a doctor, there will be questions. It would be impossible to hide out nature from him if he starts treating Alice."

"So you'd rather she stayed like this forever then?" Jasper asked, voice low and dangerous with anger.

"No, of course not, but their must eb another way…"

"There isn't Carlisle." Esme snapped, "We've tried everything we could, and now we're out of options. It's been a day, and she hasn't improved."

Carlsile closed his eyes,

"We need to at least try and find out who that man was." Bella opinioned, "Than maybe we can find some way to approach him without revealing…"

"No. He'd have to see here to from a diagnoses. And that means he'd have to see all of us." Carlisle said, "I think I know who that human was, anyway."

"Who?"

"Dr. Gregory House."

"Weird freaking; name." Emmet opinioned from the first floor, "What's he do?"

"He's head of diagnostic medicine at a hospital in New Jersey. I've read about him in a few journals, I think. He's very…eccentric. But he's saved the lives of hundreds of patients whose cases other doctors had given up on."

Edward raised an eyebrow; he'd seen the stories Carlisle had chosen not to tell in the other vampires head.

The Cullen's fell silent. Until Bella looked up and smiled;

"I think I have a plan." she said, "It isn't…legal. Or ethical, or even smart, but it might work, and if it does, it won't matter what this guy see's."

"What do you mean?" Jasper asked, beating the rest of the coven to the punch,

Bella grinned, befire sticking her head out of the door way and yelling at Emmet and Rosalie,

"Em, Rose, get up here! You feel like kidnapping a human?"

"Do what now?" Rosalie asked, having shot up the stairs with Emmet in tow before Bella was even done talking.

Bella looked around at her family as they stared back at her in surprise,  
"If we grab this Dr. House, if we make sure he doesn't see where he's going and try and keep him from figuring out where we've taken him, he'll never be able to tell people who we are or even where we are. And even if he does, who'll believe him? He's a drug addict or something isn't he?"

Emmet grinned,

"My little sister the evil mastermind." he said, ruffling Bella's hair, "I'm in."

"Might work." Rosalie agreed,

Edward could only nod, too shocked at Bella's devious turn of mind to speak.

Esme bit her lip, before dipping her head once in agreement.

Jasper gazed at Alice,

"Anything. Anything we have to do."

All eyes came to wrest on Carlisle. He sighed, deeply,

"It's the ebst we can do. If Alice had a vision of Dr. House, maybe he really is the only one that can help." he turned to look at his youngest daughter,

"What's out first move?"


	3. Shanghaied!

_Thanks for all the great reviews! You see what happens when you stroke my ego? You get a shiny new fic to read! PS- Dr. Steel is awesome. Just FYI. Anyway, short chapter, next one will be longer._

Dr. Gregory House looked out the sliding glass door that led to the balcony of his hotel room and sighed. Outside, rain lashed across Seattle in thick sheets, pouring down from the dark sky in a seemingly never-ending deluge.

House reaches into his pocket, pulling out a bottle of Vicodin and dry swallowing one of the large round pills, washing it down with a long pull of Bordeaux, straight from the bottle. House tossed the now empty bottle unto a room service cart. House looked at the laden cart and smiled.

Between the steak, lobster and wine, he'd ordered he knew he'd racked up the room service tab that would give Cuddy and aneurism. And he was only on lunch…

House hobbled over to the bed, flopped down on the cheap bedspread and flipped the TV on, planning on ordering a movie or two over the hotels rental system…not that he planned on watching it.

He was debating which of the multitude of the available porn movies would have the most interesting effect when it showed up on Cuddy's expense report when someone started knocking on the door to his room.

Muttering darkly, House heaved himself to his feet and limped to the door. He threw it open, expecting it to be Cuddy, coming early to make sure he made it to the lecture he'd been press ganged into giving on time.

Instead, he found himself with the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

he stared, dumbfounded, as the blond stranger sized him up with topaz colored eyes.

"Hi."

"Huh." House answered, jaw dropped.

"I'm Rosalie…" the blond said, looking slightly uncomfortable at House's slack jawed expression.

"Huh."

"Are you…Dr. House?"

House shook his head, as if to clear it.

"Sure am." he said, before glancing at his watch, "And you're early."

Rosalie looked confused,

"What are you talking about?"

"I told your agency that I wanted you here after five…and it's only eleven." House looked at Rosalie again, "And I ordered a brunette. But what the hell, right?"

"You…think I'm a _hooker_?" Rosalie demanded,

House raised an eyebrow,

"If you're not, that would definitely but a damper on my evening."

Rosalie glared back at the cantankerous doctor,

"I'll take that as a no. Well, why _are_ you here then?"

"My sister is sick, Dr. House," Rosalie started to explain,

"Great. Well, I tell you what, you can take her to this place called a hospital…not sure how to say that in blond, but just make sure not to take her to the same place that does you nose jobs, ok?"

Rosalie let out an angry hiss before growling,

"Listen very carefully, _cripple_…"

House smiled slightly, before slamming the door in Rosalie's face.

Less than half a second later, Rosalie began pounding on it again.

House threw it open again,

"I'm note sure how they say _I don't care_ in Seattle, put I thought I made it pretty clear that…" House yelled, until Rosalie reached up and rapped him on the forehead with her index finger.

House recoiled from the blow like he'd just been punched in the head by a prize fighter, a surprised expression on his face before his eye rolled back and he fell unconscious to the floor of the hotel room. With Rose's enhanced strength, what seemed like a light tap had carried the force of a blow from baseball bat.

The blond vampire snorted in derision before scooping up the unconscious human.

Making sure the hallway was empty, she dashed to the trash chute by the floor's ice machine, yanked open the stainless steel door covering it, and dropped House down it.

Six stories below, Emmet waited patiently, standing astride the dumpster at the bottom of the chute, waiting for his mate to drop the human doctor down it, which, if things were going to plan, should be about…now.

The massive vampire saw unconscious House hurtling down the shaft, and, timing perfect, he leapt up to lightly catch him before his limp body smashed into the steel container his second kidnapper had been standing on.

"And the crowd goes wild…" he said aloud, before rushing over to his parked Jeep and duct taping Houses' hand behind him.

Emmet had just stuffed the doctor's head into a black pillow case when Rosalie appeared at his side,

"It's kind of creepy how well Bella planned this out…" she said, helping Emmet toss the bound and blindfolded into the Jeeps cargo bay, "

"Little sister is just full of surprises, huh, babe? She still hasn't come clean about how the cottage Esme got her and Edward collapsed…"

Rose rolled her eyes,

"After we spent a month restoring it. Anyway, lets get going before the feds show up, okay?"

"No problem." Emmet slammed the Jeeps rear hatch shut before he and Rose leapt into the passenger compartment and sped off down the alley the hotels trash bins were located.

Back at the hotel, Dr. Lisa Cuddy was banging impatiently on her colleague's door,

"House! Your giving that speech in twenty minutes!"

Silence.

"House! If you don't open this door in five seconds, you're going to owe me eight extra weeks of clinic duty! House!"

Silence again

"Oh that's it!" Cuddy pulled a small key card out of her pocket and slipped it into the reader over the doorknob before kicking the door to House's room open.

"You weren't expecting that were…" she looked around at the empty room in surprise,

"Oh no."

She checked the bathroom, and found no sign of House,

"Oh you _childish jerk_." she ground out, teeth clenched.

He was going to pay for this.

Dearly.


	4. Rude Awakenings

_Sorry it took so long for me to get this one up, things kept coming up. _

_Like an 8 page research paper. _

_This fic is dedicated to the memories of Major Bludd and Tommy Arashikage_

_Gone but not forgotten._

_Yeah, if you got that, congratulations; you're the one person I wrote that joke for. _

Most of the Cullen family was arrayed in the living room of their mansion, motionlessly waiting form Emmet and Rosalie to return from Seattle with their quarry; a human doctor named Gregory House.

Bella looked around the darkened living room at her family.

The heavy steel shutters on the back of the house had been shut, and blinds were tightly closed, sealing off any sight of the green world outside.

Emmet and Rosalie were bringing doctor House back with them to Forks, whether the good doctor wanted to come or not.

In any case, he couldn't be allowed to see where he was. In the likely event he guessed at the Cullen's true nature while trying to treat Alice, he wouldn't be able to tell the rest of the world about it; at least, not in any way that wouldn't result in him being seen as anything but a lone nut harping about a family of vampires with no real way to prove they actually existed.

Or, at least, that was the plan.

As her ears picked up the distant sound of Emmet's jeep pulling unto the Cullen's gravel driveway, she could only wonder if things worked out the way she hoped…because if they didn't, House might have to be turned. She looked around at her family again, Edward staring back at her with a hopeful smile.

Bella was happy, for once, that he couldn't read her thoughts. Because she was thinking of what might have to happen if House figured things out and didn't want to become one of them. What had she gotten everybody into?

Her thoughts were swept aside as Rosalie opened the door and Emmet darted into the doorway with the limp form of a man slung over his shoulder.

The hulking vampire stood in the doorway and let the breeze blow over him and into the house for a few moments.

Bella nostrils flared as the burning scent of the humans blood wafted through the room.

Then she flinched; the normally tantalizing scent was tinged with a harsh medicinal smell, leaving a bitter taste in her throat.

"What is that _smell?_" she asked,

"Vicodin." Carlisle answered eyes wide, "His blood carries the scent of…the amount of painkillers he must have taken for it to remain so strongly in his bloodstream is staggering…" Carlisle whispered, shaking his head.

"Emmet, are you going to bring the poor man inside?" Esme asked as Emmet stood in the doorway, carefully studying the rest of the Cullen's reactions to his burdens blood.

"Yeah, sure no problem. I was just making sure he wasn't ah, singing a song to anybody or anything, y'know? Wouldn't do to have anyone cracking this guys neck open before he takes a look at Alice." Emmet laughed, before dumping the limp body unto the couch. Rosalie followed and unceremoniously dropped House's cane on his chest.

The blond vampire kept glaring down at House as Carlisle swept across the room to check the unconscious human's vital signs.

"Oh…was it necessary to hit him quite so hard, Rose?" he asked his daughter, looking at her in disappointment.

Rose shrugged,

"I didn't break anything. And he was asking for it."

"What do you…"

Edward let out a startled laugh before Carlisle could finish his question,

"He thought you were a _what_?"

Rosalie turned to glare at her "older" brother.  
"What?" Bella asked her husband, wondering what could have angered Rosalie so much.

"He thought Rosalie was a…"

"If you don't stop talking, mind reader, I swear I'll pour concrete down your throat until you shut up."

"You have to admit, Rose, you sometimes dress the part."

Rosalie narrowed her eyes dangerously before stalking out of the room and up the stairs.

Emmet looked around in confusion,

"Seriously, dude, what are you talking about?"

Edward shrugged,

"It seems that Dr. House thought Rose was a bit…professional."

"What…oh." Emmet grinned, "I can see how that might piss her off a bit, yeah."

"If we could get back to the business at hand…"

Carlisle's soft voice brought the family back to the unpleasant situation at hand, and the Cullen's gathered around the couch where House was sprawled out.

Carlisle set a hand on Houses' neck to check his pulse, and twitched a little as his subconscious caused him to flinch under Carlisle's cold hands.

"Strong pulse." Carlisle said, before pulling up one house eyelids and shining a penlight into house eye. The vampire surgeon moved the light back and forth, nodding as houses blue iris tracked the light. He clicked the light off and turned to Edward,

"How are his thoughts? Anything seem off?"

Edward was silent for a moment, and then his eyebrows raised,

"They seem clear enough but…a bit…off."

"What do you mean?"

"He's having a very…_vivid_ dream."

"About what?" Carlisle asked, hoping his eldest daughter hadn't traumatized the crippled doctor in some odd way.

"Well…some woman named Cuddy. And…Rose. And various…accessories."

Emmet furrowed his brows as he looked from the uncomfortable expression on his brother's face to the unconscious doctor, and his mouth suddenly hardened into a thin, angry line.

"Sick motherfucker." Emmet ground out, his body tensing.

"Emmet, maybe you should…" Edward began, as he saw the murderous thoughts forming in his brothers head. And suddenly, a wave of calm washed over the room, and Edwards sent a thankful glance at the ceiling. Jasper hadn't left Alice's side, but apparently he'd been following the conversation from the second floor, and was now using his talent to keep the hotheaded Emmet from doing anything stupid.

Emmet snorted in amusement,

"Y'know if he got that…_scenario _from two minutes with Rose, just wait 'till he sees Bella…or even mom…" Emmet said, winking at Edward, "Have fun with _that _line of thought, bro."

Edward rolled his eyes.

"Jasper, if you'd keep up your influence, I'm going to wake Dr. House now…"

As the waves of calm continued to wash over the room, Carlisle pulled out a small capsule and broke it under House's nose. As the harsh reek of smelling salts filled the room, the doctors eyes snapped open.

Groggily, House sat up and looked around the room, shaking his head to clear it and wondering just where he was.

"Dr. House?"

House blearily focused on the blond man crouched by his bed,

"Dr. House, my name is Carlisle..."

"How long was I out?" House asked, while slowly sliding into a sitting position on the couch and holding his head in his hands.

"Around two hours, I believe."

House moaned in frustration,

"Cuddy is going to be insufferable about me missing that damn speech…" House looked around, a thoughtful look on his face, "Why aren't I in a hospital?" he said aloud, _In fact, just where the hell am I?_ he wondered.

"You're in our home." Edward said, answering House's unspoken thought "Our sister is very ill, and we need you to take look at her."

House squinted at Edward, and then his eyes widened,

"You people…_kidnapped_ me?" House demanded, staring at the Cullen's incredulously.

"You have to understand, Dr. House we don't mean any harm it's just…" Esme began,

"Oh, you don't mean any harm? I thought with the whole kidnapping thing…but as long as you didn't _mean_ any harm." House snapped, glaring at the vampires.

"If you would have just come with Rosalie, this wouldn't have been necessary in the first place." Carlisle pointed out.

"Wait, that blond hooker…I don't agree to help you so you kidnap me? What idiot came up with that plan?"

Bella stormed forward,

"I did." she barked; with enough force in her force that Edward stepped back and stared at her surprise "My sister is sick Dr. House, and we have no idea why."

"Well miss evil mastermind, did you ever think of taking her to a doctor? Or are they so rare around here you had to kidnap one?"

"If you you'd stop being a jackass for five seconds, we might be able to tell you what happened."

"Fine, go ahead. While she talks the rest of you can think of the horrible things that are going to happen to you in prison."

Emmet snorted in disdain and House fixed him with an icy, blue eyed glare,

Ignoring the by play Bella continued,

"My sister is sick, and Carlisle, who's a doctor by the way, can't figure out what's wrong with her. We were desperate and we had some…information from a friend that you'd be able to help her."

"Again we get back to whole abducting me part, which is really the only bit of the story I care about…" House glared into Bella's topaz eyes, idly noticing they were the same color as the rest of her family's, "And if you want me to diagnose someone here's a hint…send me a referral!"

Bella snarled and leaned down to get in House's face,

"We didn't have the time, now are you going to help us or not?"

"No!" House shot back, petulantly,

"Bella, please, be calm." Carlisle said, his voice mild. He turned to face House as Bella grudgingly stepped away from the cantankerous doctor, "Dr. House, I know this is very strange, but I assure you, we don't wish to harm you. There's no need to be afraid."

"I'm not…"

Carlisle held up a hand,

"It's alright. But, allow me to explain why we took this very drastic step to get you to take a look at Alice."

House raised a eyebrow, but said nothing,

"My family and I, we have a very…_unusual_ nature. And we try to keep it secret, for the protection of others and ourselves…"

"Ohhh mysterious." House muttered, still looking dubiously on at Carlisle and the rest of the Cullen's,

"And this nature is also what makes it difficult for normal medical diagnostics to work on us. When my daughter fell ill, I tried everything I possibly could to find out what was wrong with her, and nothing worked. Out of desperation, we decided to seek the aid of the best diagnostic doctor we could find."

House cocked his head,

"Nice try on the ego-stroking there, Doc, but it's not going to help you." House stood up and leaned on his cane, "If I take a look at this kid of yours, will you lunatics let me go?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Good. Well take me to the sick person. If the rest of are any indication, she's probably just off her psych meds."

"She's upstairs." Esme said, ignoring Houses verbal abuse,

"Great. Stairs." House clomped over to the winding staircase and side before unsteadily making his way to the top, the Cullen clan jammed the staircase behind him, with Emmet visibly chafing at the human's slow speed.

House turned to glare at him again,

"Hey, Eminem, you should meet this guy I work with; he acts as white as you act black. If we put you two together we'd have one a hell of a sitcom."

Emmet growled at House,

"Maybe not up to snuff for say, ABC, but I bet Fox would pick it up."

House smiled and continued to the top of the stairs.

"Which room is it?" he demanded,

"Second on the left." Carlisle answered,

House limped down the hallway, kicked the door open.

Ignoring Jasper, he approached Alice and looked her up and down.

Frowning, he set a hand on her chest, then on her neck to check her pulse.

"Oh Doctor Cullen! I need a consult!" he shouted.

Carlisle walked into the room ahead of the others.

"So tell me Doc, what's the diagnosis if the symptoms include no pulse, heart beat or breathing?"

"Dr. House I know how this seems…"

"Death!" House shouted, answering his own question, "You psychotic idiots don't need prison, you need a psych ward!"

Sighing frustration, Bella left the crowd of vampires and strode over to Doctor House.

Grabbing one of his hands, she forcefully made him take her pulse.

After a few moments, House's eyes widened.

Then Bella set his hand on her chest, just over her heart.

Houses mouth fell open.

"Maybe you should rethink that, Dr. House." she said, voice dark with anger.

House ignored it, and looked at the rest of Cullen's, who stood staring back intensely with those identical eyes of theirs, none of them breathing, as still as statues.

"Interesting."


	5. Living Dead Girl

_(I don't own Twilight or house, and the title of this fic is taken from the Rob Zombie song of the same name)_

_Here ya go kids._

_I think you're going to like this one…_

_The Cullen Mansion, outside Forks, Washington._

House stood rooted in place, his keen blue eyes roaming across the Cullen Family.

Edward glowered back in frustration as he listen to House speculate about his family; some of his guesses were uncomfortably close to the truth…

"So, Dr. House," Edward piped up, trying to throw the relentless doctor off of his train of thought. "Are we _interesting_ enough to be worthy of your aid?"

House shrugged. "Doesn't look like I have much choice anyway, does it?" he asked, glaring back at the mind reading vampire. "I'm going to need a few things first…"

"Such as?"

House limped forward, brushing past the vampires and out into the hall. Clumping across the hardwood floor, House kicked open the doorway across from Jasper and Alice's room. He glanced around at the massive bed and opulent furnishings in Rosalie's and Emmet's room, shook his head. He then stomped off down the hall and kicked in the next door. He glared around, looking at the room shared by Edward and Bella; it was still dominated by the massive set of stereo equipment and piles of CD.

"Nope," House said aloud, before limping back down the hallway, glancing at the crowd of perplexed vampires.

"Second door on the left," Edward commented.

"What?" House demanded

"Try the second door on the left. You should find what you're looking for."

Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, House kicked in the door to Carlisle office.

He turned to glare at Edward before limping into the dark paneled room and rifling though the desk drawers. He limped back out into the hall way with handful of multicolored Sharpie markers in his hand. Before any of the Cullen's could speak, House swung his cane up and rested on his shoulder before leaning on the door frame to Carlisle's office.

"So, Dr. Cullen. When you said you'd tried everything to diagnose your ah…daughter…did you mean _everything _everything, or was it a more relative everything?"

"The more inclusive option, I'm afraid."

"Huh. MRI?"

"It's impossible to inject the dye marker into her."

"Uh-huh. X-ray?"

"The radiation won't have the correct affect. Our bodies are…shielded, I guess you might say."  
"Well I guess I would. And since I can't even use a damn thermometer to see if her temperature's raised because you all have the body temperature of a snowman,"

House heaved himself up off the door frame and over to the stair case. "I don't suppose you'd mind if I put some distance between your daughter and me. Patients give me the willies." House gave and exaggerated shiver and limped back down the stairs, "Oh, and next time you kidnap a handicapped person, you really should make this place more accessible."

As the rest of the Cullens followed their bizarre human captive, Edward set a hand on Bella's shoulder.

"Is there something bothering you, love?" he asked, his expression anxious.

"What…what do you mean?" Bella asked, anxiously looking on as House slowly descended the staircase.

"Earlier, in Alice's room, and when Dr. House awoke…you were not acting like yourself."

"I'm fine Edward. Now, please, we should go see what that jerk comes up with next. I swear, if we put up with this fools antics and nothing comes of it, I'll…" Edward's eyes widened; he'd heard Bella threaten violence before, but never like this. This was serious.

"You'll what, Bella?" Edward asked, voice harsh with anger and surprise, "Break his other leg?"

"Why are you acting like this? Alice might be dying, and you're trying to calm me down?"

"Bella why are _you_ acting like this? You weren't even this angered when you found out about Jacob and Ness."

Bella shrugged off Edward's arm and glowered over at him. "I'm sorry if I'm not acting like an insecure little girl for you anymore Edward, but I've got other things on my mind right now."

"Bella, if this is about something I've done…"  
Bella whirled and leaned into her husbands face. "The whole world doesn't revolve around you, Edward!" she shouted, before walking down the stairs. Behind her, Edward almost crumpled to the ground; he had to grab onto the wall to keep from sinking to his knees.

"If the drama club is done performing…" House commented when Bella reached the first floor; the rest of the Cullens were staring at their newest family member in surprise not far removed from Edward's.

Bella sent a venomous glare at House; Emmett, who was closest to her, could hear her teeth grind together. He stepped forward a bit, keeping himself between Bella and House.

"Jazz, dude, I know you're distracted, but I'd really appreciate…" he whispered, too low for House to hear. A sudden wave of calm flooded the house, and Bella grudgingly relaxed. House suddenly looked around in confusion, eyes narrowing again as he pondered the bizarre wave of calm emotion washing over him.

_Stranger and stranger…_he thought. Twirling a black tipped Sharpie in his hand, he looked around the spacious living room speculatively before limping over to a white painted wall under the staircase and knocking a handful of pictures off of it.

He turned when Esme let out a loud hiss of anger at House's careless regard for her house, "Medical emergency. You understand, right?"

"You…if you damage this house anymore…"

"Here's a thought…if you hadn't kidnapped me, I wouldn't be damaging anything of yours, would I?" House demanded, before uncapping the Sharpie and scrawling on the blank white wall. When he was done, he turned to face the Cullens again.

"So, here we are." He rapped his graffiti with his cane; in bold lettering it said _"Living Dead Girl"_

"Symptoms include complete paralysis," House scrawled that under his name for the case, "And a total coma." He wrote that under paralysis. He stepped back and admired his handiwork for a few moments. "Of course with no pulse, no heartbeat, and no means of verifying that she's still alive—or whatever state you people are in that passes for alive—how are we to know that she's y'know…_alive_?"

The Cullens were silent, except for a ragged angry breathing coming from Esme. Still glaring daggers at Dr. House she ground out;

"What is the _point_ of all this?" she demanded.

"It's called a differential diagnosis. As for your wall…" House glanced over his handwriting scrawled on the pristine white wall, "That's what you get for not having a dry erase board handy. You really are lousy kidnappers, you know that?"

The Cullens glared back at the human doctor, who glared right back.

"You people aren't helping. Again, why are you sure we're not just worrying over an empty shell?"

Edward came down from the second floor, with a numb expression still spread across his face.

"All of your explanations are wrong, Dr. House." he said, tonelessly.

"What are you talking about, Sulky?"

"I've been listening to your thoughts, doctor. Every explanation you've come up with to explain what we are has been wrong."  
House looked skeptical. "You've been listening to my thoughts, huh? Then tell me, what was I thinking about when I was writing on the wall?"

"You were testing our limits. Trying to see how far you could go before we drew the line and stopped you from acting like the self centered jerk you are."

"Oh obviously. Look kid, I'm sure you're so psychic you can make an educated guess about anything. It's actually called being observant…"

"But what you were really thinking about the whole time and what you were thinking about the whole time you were scouting the house while pretending to look for your 'equipment' is the best way to escape. Not because you care about how _interesting _we are, but because you want to get Alice away from us and into a hospital. You're actually worried about her, Dr. House, and you're trying to save your patient. From us."

House shrugged. "Yeah, it just breaks my heart to have the poor sick girl here with her psychotic family of delusional freaks instead of draining away my tax dollars while being kept alive in a nice hospital room…"

"Cut it out, House. You care. I know you care. And I can tell Alice is alive because I can see her thoughts. They're what led us to you in the first place; she was having visions of you."

"Oh, so you have a mind reader _and_ a fortune teller in the family?" House demanded, snorting in derision. "Y'know this reminds me of this freak show I went to on Coney Island…"

"…except there was a bearded lady and more drug dealers?" Edward finished,

"What?"

"That is what you were going to say, wasn't it?"

For just a moment, House's hardened expression flickered with doubt,

"Nice try…"

"42."

Houses mouth fell open,

"You were about to ask me what number you were thinking of, and that was it, correct?"

"What…the…hell…" House whispered.

Suddenly, moving so fast House didn't even see him move, Edward darted to House's side and yanked the Sharpie out of his hand.

"There are suddenly a lot more things in the world you can't explain, aren't there?"

House stared, eyes widened as he felt the coldly rational world he'd built for himself crashing down around him,

"But let's work on explaining some of those things, shall we?"

House's eye narrowed again, and a thin smile spread across his mouth.

"There's an explanation for this. There always is."

Edward shrugged, before turning to the wall and writing "Repeated Visions" under "Coma."

"Maybe not this time, Dr. House. And I think you'd be better off not trying very hard to find it."

Houses' smile widened slightly, and he turned from Edward to face the rest of the Cullens.

"Here's what's going to happen," House said, rapping Edward's shoulder with his cane. "I'm going to need three volunteers…" he pointed his cane at Emmett. "You. Disagree with everything I say."

"What?" the enormous vampire demanded, confused.

"Trust me. I've done this before," House said before pointing at Carlisle. "You, agree with everything I say," and finally, he pointed his cane at Bella, "And you, act morally outraged at everything I say."

"This isn't a game, House," Bella growled.

"Good God…" House whispered. "You're perfect at this."

House turned to look at the symptoms scrawled on the wall before turning to Edward.

"Oh, and I almost forgot. You're demoted to life support monitoring. Go stand in your sister's room and let me know if anything in her train of thought changes."

Edward hesitated.  
"Do you want to help or not? Get moving!"

With one last angst filled glance at Bella, Edward disappeared up the stairs.

He stopped when he was almost at the top and cursed, loudly.

"Edward, what's going on?" Carlisle asked

"Jacob's on his way back with Renessme."

"What? Why?" Rosalie demanded, looking nervously at Dr. House; the human was watching the byplay with keen interest.

"Because she was worried about Alice and demanded to return, of course." Edward said, an exasperated expression on his face.

"What's the big deal?" House asked. "The more the merrier."

The Cullens ignored the human as they heard the sound of Jacobs car crunching up the gravel drive to the house.

"And it seems he's brought Leah along as well." Edward growled.

Emmet laughed out loud.

"Oh really? If there's one person in the world super-asshole over there…" he pointed at House. "…could get along with, it's gotta be Miss Spite and Bitterness."

Rosalie grinned; even Esme smiled a bit, looking forward to having someone around who might be able to give House even better than he gave, however problematic that person might be.  
"I'm surprised she agreed to come with them. She normally avoids us at all costs." Carlisle said, looking curiously at Edward.

"Something about borrowing Jacobs's car, I gather. She's not coming in."

Carlisle signed in relief.

"Wait…oh _hell_."

"What is it, Edward?" Bella asked, her anger forgotten as she watched Edward's features freeze in a mask of worry.

"They've caught House's scent somehow. Leah's suspicious. She'll investigate why we have a human here…"

"This might be bad," Emmett commented before walking over to House. "Should I take Mr. Misanthropic elsewhere?"

"Too late. They're here."

Jacob's car came to halt, and the Cullens all heard the sound of a door being quickly thrown open.

"Leah wait!" Jacob shouted. "You need to calm down!"

"Fuck off, Jake!"

The front door flew open, and Leah Clearwater ran into the house,  
"What are you leaches…up…to…"

She stared at House. Her face froze, demands trailing off. She looked at House like a person seeing the world for the first time. She looked at House like he was the moon, stars and the sun rolled into one being. She looked at House like…a Quileute who'd just imprinted.

House stared back, eyebrows raised.

"And what's _your_ problem?"


	6. The Problems at Hand

_A/N-Well hello again, children. Sorry it took so long for me to get this one out, but unfortunately I'm back at my creativity killing job for the summer._

_It's kind of cramping my style, as it were. _

_Anyway, finally got some time and energy together and wrote this! _

_Oh, and thanks for all the great reviews, glad you all like the storyline! _

_PS-Sorry, not too big of a chance for anything too scientific in this thing; science is not my specialty, I'm afraid._

_PPS-My two Betas are both wrapped up in wedding stuff right now, so they're kinda preoccupied with that. So if anyone wants to edit this story for me, jump up and down and scream "Pick me!" And then, since I can't see you do that, send me a PM.  
Also, I apologize for some offensive language in this fic, but hey; it's Leah. She's a very angry elf._

Dr. Lisa Cuddy looked around the empty hotel room where house was staying in anger and growing worry. She'd been convinced that her cantankerous employee had flown the coop to avoid the speech he was supposed to be giving…well, right now, but as she surveyed the deserted room she noticed that while House's cane was gone, his jacket, wallet and cell phone were still sitting on the desk by the TV cabinet.

She was relatively sure that while House would deliberately leave his cell phone behind to avoid calls from her or his team back in New Jersey, unless strip clubs and bars in Seattle were in the habit of giving out services on credit, House wouldn't have gone very far without his wallet. And if he'd left his jacket here…Cuddy looked outside at the grey drizzle coming down from the sky on what was very much a cold fall day in the Pacific Northwest.

House treated his body like an amusement park, disregarded his personal appearance and wore vintage t-shirts to work at a hospital, but he _never_ risked his heath gratuitously, in a such as wondering around in a cold rain storm sans protection; he even wore a helmet when he rode his motorcycle.

With her worry winning out against her anger, Cuddy picked up the phone on the nightstand and dialed the front desk,

When a cheerful sounding clerk answered it, the hospital administrator demanded,

"Have you seen a man leave the hotel recently, scruffy looking and walking with a cane?"

"Ma'm?"

"He'd be in his early fifties, graying brown hair, have you seen anyone like that leave the hotel? He's a…friend of mine. I checked his room and he wasn't there."

"Uh…ma'm we're not allowed to give out that kind of information, unless you can prove direct relation to…"

Cuddy cursed and slammed down the phone before pulling her cell out of hr purse and hitting the speed dial button for Dr. Wilson's office phone,

Wilson answered in the second ring, and instead of say "hello", he asked

"Oh god, what did he do?"

Despite herself, Cuddy almost laughed, but instead demanded,

"Have you talked to him?"

"Not since you left…no, he hasn't called to tell me anything." Wilson said, sounding as unconvincing as he always did when he was trying to cover something up.

"Don't _bullshit_ me, Wilson. It looks like House's missing, he's gone from his hotel room and all of his things are still here. If this is just another one of his little mind games and I find out you're in on it, you're both going to regret it."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and then;

"What do you mean he's missing?"

"He's gone, Wilson. It looked like eh was skipping out on his lecture, but unless he's decided to hide in the cleaning supply closest with his IPod…" cuddy glanced down and saw that House's MP3 player and PSP were till sitting next to the bed, "Which I don't think he has, it looks like something might be wrong."

Wilson sighed,

"You know House. This could just be him showing his vindictive streak."

Cuddy found herself nodding in agreement, even though Wilson was over a thousand miles away, "Maybe. It seems a bit juvenile even for him though. I'm going o go check the hotel; you go talk to his team." Cuddy hit the end button and stormed out of House's room, wondering, in the back of her head, why Wilson had seemed evasive at first.

On eth other side of the country, Wilson slowly hung up his phone and looked up at a massive stack of card board boxes in front of his desk.

"Cuddy thinks house might have gone missing." he said, tonelessly, before looking up at the five people in the room.

"We can only hope." Dr. Chase said, running a hand through his long blond hair and shaking his head.

Dr. Taub nodded, the expression on his face showing a mix of anger, desperation and disbelief.

Dr. Foreman and Thirteen sat on the floor, sifting through one of the cardboard boxes. They were pulling out bags filled with gray, green, tan, and blue toy soldiers,

"He's lost it." Foreman ground out,

"Yep. He has." Thirteen agreed.

Leaning against the doorframe, Dr. Cameron read the letter that had come with the boxes,

In Houses sprawling handwriting, it said;

_To Chase, Foreman, Cameron, Taub Thirteen and Wilson;_

_Use the contents of these boxes to turn Cuddy's office into a model of the Normandy Invasion, or I will tell EVERYONE you know about all of those dirty secrets you've been keeping…especially Thirteen and Taub. You thought you could hide something from ME?_

_Pathetic._

_Hugs and Kisses,_

_House_

"This is insane." Wilson muttered, and then he sat bolt upright,

"Whose credit cards did he use to pay for all of these?"

The assembled doctors all looked up in terror, before darting off to check their bank statements, leaving Wilson by himself to ponder the stack of boxes.

Sighing in defeat, he picked up the first box and started the walk down to Cuddy's office. Any worries he might have had about his seemingly missing friend were canceled out by Houses' bizarre demand.

Had he known about it, the irony of that situation might have made the currently kidnapped Dr. House run his head into a very solid looking wall; of course, at the moment he had more than enough reasons to attempt to use his head as a battering ram;

He was being pinned protectively to the wall by an incredibly strong and very angry young woman, who was snarling half coherent threats and insults at the bizarre family that had snatched him from his hotel room and brought him to their isolated house in the Washington wilderness,

"You damn leeches stay away! I don't know what you're playing at, but it ends now!" Leah yelled at the Cullen's,

"Leah, please calm down, we need to figure out what's going on here." Jacob pleaded from the doorway, trying to reason with his newly imprinted clan mate and at the same time keep the young object of his own imprinting form seeing what was going on,

"Screw _you_ Pedo-boy!If a bunch of leeches were holding that prissy little half-breed you want to stick it to so bad, you wouldn't be so…"

Jacob roared with anger and shot forward, but Emmet slung him back out the doorway before he had a chance to phase, while Rosalie and Esme did there best to hold the now furious Edward and Bella back form the woman who'd slandered there daughter and friend so horribly,

"We need to lock this down _now_!" Emmet shouted, before preparing to pounce on Leah to shut her up,

"Emmet, wait!, Let me try and talk to her." Carlisle said, stepping in front of Emmet

"She's not interested in reason dad, the crazy dogs imprinted, you think you can reason with _that _insanity?!?" Rosalie shouted, moving to slide around her father and spring on Leah before the Quileute woman had a chance to phase; too late it seemed. Leah began to growl and shake as her body prepared to change to its wolf form.

Behind her, House drew in a deep breathe;

"_What the hell is going on?!?"_ he shouted at the top of his lungs.

The roomful of mythical creatures froze at the human's angry shout.

"Could someone please explain? _Right now_, if you don't mind?" House demanded.

And then the room exploded with frantic voices again,

"...her family and ours have problems on occasion…"

"Oh that's rich, Leech Boy…"

"It's all a bit strange, but really…"

"Would someone please let me back inside?"

"…really is more trouble than it's worth…"

"Could we all just calm down, please?"  
"What about Aunt Alice?"

"Focus on the medicine don't concern yourself with…"

House closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose,

"_Shut up!_"

The room fell dead silent again,

House looked over at Leah,

"I appreciate your concern, Miss Congeniality, but I'm here more or less…" House sent a meaningful look at Rosalie, "…of my own free will. Now, if it's not too much trouble, I want everybody but the people on my 'team' and Sulky the Life Sign Monitor out of the house."

Silence,

"_Right now, dammit_!"

Leah folded her arms across her chest,

"I'm not going anywhere."

House looked her up and down,

"Fine, I can make that work, but you might have to start sleeping with the big guy over there to fit in the way I'll need you to. And maybe the annoyingly dramatic girl too"

Leah nodded soberly,

"If you want me to."

House gaped at her for a moment, and then turned to look at the Cullen's again.

"I wasn't kidding when I told you to leave. Scram! And don't come back until you've worked the drama queen out your systems."

Dumbfounded, the haughty vampire clan filed out if their own house, leaving behind the small group House had chosen to assist him; except for Jasper who had remained hidden away in Alice's room, forgotten by the temperamental human doctor who had taken charge of the household from its feuding inhabitants,

House glared at the small gathering of Vampires and the single werewolf,

"I really, really have no idea what's going on here."

Leah opened her mouth to speak,

"Not a word, Miss Angry." House barked, "I don't know what's going on, and I really don't care. My only concern, and your only concern, as far as I'm concerned," House snickered slightly, "is the fact that we have a non functioning patient upstairs. Differential diagnosis, people. What do we know?" He asked, pointing at Emmet.

"Uh…Alice's in a coma and we don't know why."

House pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed,

"Never mind. Let's start with something simpler than…"

"Don't you want to know what was just happening? Why I'm here?" Leah asked, her voice hopeful as the object of her imprinting stood maddeningly out of her reach.

House sighed,

"No, but I'd bet your going to tell me at some point anyway. And what's your name, anyway?" House asked, doing his best to offend the strange woman who couldn't stop staring at him like a lost puppy into silence.

Instead of getting angry, Leah smiled and laughed,

"I'm Leah Clearwater…and uh, what's your name, anyway?" Leah asked, trying to sound coy. The Cullen's stared at her.

"Dr. House. You can call me…Dr. House."

Leah laughed again,

"Okay Doc. Let me know when you want to talk…I think we'll have a lot to chat about."

House shook his head, as if to clear it, and stared at Leah in surprise.

"The hell with it, if no one else is worried about the dying girl upstairs…"

"Just tell us what you need House." Bella nearly shouted, trying to focus everyone back unto the real problem,

"I need you to tell me where you were when your sister…seized up? Froze? Whatever you want to call it. I need someone to tell me if anyone had noticed anything odd about her behavior, and especially, and this is the most important part, I'm going to need one of you to tell me _just what the hell is going on!_"


	7. Breakdowns

_The Cullen Residence, near the Town of Forks, Washington_

Dr. Gregory House glared at the suddenly quiet members of his improvised team; after his abrupt demand to be let in on whatever annoying set of secrets they were trying to keep, their only response had been to fall into a sullen silence; the big guy standing in for Foreman had moved a few steps closer to the native American woman who'd been staring at him like he was the second coming.

While it did wonders for his ego, it was a bit disconcerting to have a woman half his age seemingly on the cusp of dragging him off and raping him.

_Actually,_ House eyed Leah speculatively, _on second thought that sounds fun._

Leah suddenly opened her mouth to try and speak, and Emmet lunged at her, trying to keep her from spilling the precious secret of the Cullen's vampiric nature to the human.

Leah deftly dodged the lighting fast vampires attack and shouted, "These freaks are _vampires_! Run!"

The words were barely out of her mouth before Emmet turned and snarled, preparing to attack again; Carlisle threw himself in between his son and Leah, who was starting to wildly shiver, getting ready to phase and attack her vampire adversary with her full lupine fury.

Bella shot to her feet, as if unsure what to do, while Carlisle spoke in mild tones,

"Everyone calm down, please. Leah, we don't mean Dr. House any harm, I promise you."

"Dad, for Christ's sake, she just told him! You know what we'll have to do now!"

"The Quileute's have been telling those they imprint on our secret for decades, Emmet. None of them has told an outsider so far."

"Yeah, but _this guy?_ Come on!"

Emmet turned to look at House, who was staring at the four strange people with a mixture of shock and contempt,

"You people think you're…_vampires_?"

Emmet and Carlisle exchanged surprised glances. Disbelief hadn't been the reaction they were expecting. Judging by the angry look on her face neither did Leah.

"You _idiots_!" House raged, stumping away from his ersatz dry erase board on the wall and walking in a long circle around the three vampires, "I guess the fallen daughter upstairs has been snacking on blood, huh? Do you lunatics have any idea how many parasites there are in human blood?"

"We only eat animals…" Bella automatically protested, sounding exasperated.

"Oh well, since animals are so much cleaner than humans…give dear sister some antibiotics and she'll be fine."

"House, they really are vampires!" Leah shouted, moving to his side, "They drink blood to survive; they don't go out in the sunlight…"

"I noticed it's four in the afternoon and they're up and about. Shouldn't they have coffins or something? Or capes? And shouldn't there be a mob of angry villagers on their way to burn the castle down? Oh I'm sorry, we're not in a castle, are we? And they're not vampires because _vampires don't exist!_" House glared at Leah, who stared back at him in outraged surprise.

Despite the tension in the room, Emmet snickered. He knew Leah well enough to know she wanted to rip House a new asshole right now, but she couldn't because of their imprint.

Leah turned to glare at him, and the snicker became a guffaw.

"What are you laughing at, Ice Cube?" she growled.

"You."

"Oh, if you think that's funny, you should go look in a mirror and think 'wow, if Fred Durst ever dies, I know right where they can find another suburban white boy gangster wannabe to replace him'"

Emmet stopped laughing, while House looked at the strange girl who'd imprinted on him

with real affection for the first time,

"Good one," he said, slapping her on the back. "Now, if we can just get you all to forget the part where you think you're vampires, we can get moving on the whole saving the patient thing, if it's not to much trouble."

"Oh she's not a vampire, doc. She's a _werewolf_." Emmet said, smiling darkly at Leah.

House sighed in exasperation,

"Alright you lunatics, if you don't…"

Snarling in fury, Bella darted across the room at her full vampire speed and lifted House off the ground by the collars of his jacket with one hand,

"Listen, _Doctor_," she growled, "Stop slandering my family, and do what we brought you here to do, or I swear, I'll make you pay. You don't think we're vampires? Than how come we don't have a pulse? How come we're all pale as snow? How come our skin is cold as ice…" Bella hauled House a little higher off the ground, "And how come a hundred pound _girl_ is lifting you off the ground with one hand?"

Disbelief and fear washed over House's face, but only for a moment before his blue eyes hardened into his normal implacable glare. "Because _vampires_ aren't real! _Psychics_ aren't real! _Werewolves _aren't real! You people are just _freaks of nature!_"

Carlisle and Emmet, and presumably Edward and Jasper as well, had all been frozen in place by Bella's bizarre and uncharacteristic fury. Leah too had fallen into shocked silence. But when Bella raised a hand to strike House after his savage insult, the female shape shifter had snapped back into reality. Phasing in an instant, her grey wolf form shot across the room and knocked Bella off her legs. The young vampire spilled House out of her grip and the human bounced once before scrambling away from the huge grey wolf and her enraged adversary. He tried to pull himself to his feet, but the pain from his mangled leg shot through him, overwhelming his senses and he cried out in agony before falling back to the floor.

Leah's head snapped around at House's cry and Bella, sensing Leah's distraction, prepared to strike.

"_Bella, what the _fuck_ are you doing_?"

The room fell into an abrupt silence. Emmet and Carlisle slowly turned, both of them sure that they had misheard the voice; that it wasn't who they thought it was…but it was.

Edward was striding down the stairs; his every step purposeful and angry.

Bella stared at her husband in shock so deep it was painful to look upon. He'd never sworn, he'd never yelled, he'd never been angry at her… all traces of her fury had been completely erased.

Just for a moment, Carlisle saw agony in his son's eyes, as if every moment he was angry at Bella was tearing him apart.

He guessed it was.

"You were going to _kill _that man. Do you want that on your soul? Do you want to be _completely like me_?"

Bella worked her mouth, but no words came out.

Edward reached down and helped House up, scooping up the crippled humans cane as he did so. After steadying Dr. House on his feet and handing him back his cane, Edward turned to look at his wife; his face had lost it's furious expression and had settled on a more sedate anger,

"What's gotten into you Bella?"

The brown haired vampire made a wordless noise in the back of her throat that sounded like pure desperation,

"I just need to be alone!" She shouted, before running at full tilt out of the room and into the kitchen; they heard the back door open and slam shut. Edward immediately took off after his wife, ignoring her plea to be left alone.

House looked shaken, shocked, surprised. And he was staring at Leah's wolf form like it came from his deepest nightmare.

He reached into his jacket pocket for his bottle of Vicodin and popped one of the pills into his mouth. After a moment's consideration, he took two more.

"Well…" House said, his voice shaking, "That's…two emo-tastic teenage vampires down…just two to go."

It was a feeble jest, and he knew it.

Leah moved to his side, gazing into his eyes in concern. House didn't flinch away; instead he reached out to touch the grey wolf as if he was making sure she was real.

Something within him seemed to break, and he took in a great sobbing gasp of air before stumbling over to one of the big white couches and collapsing on it.

After a few moments his eyes seemed to refocus, and he looked over at the remaining vampires and the wolf,

"So, since my world view still isn't completely shattered, why doesn't someone just go ahead and tell me everything?"

In the woods nearby, Edward was in hot pursuit of Bella, finally catching up with her near the small cottage she'd been given as a birthday present.

She had stopped running and was sitting on a moss covered rock, staring into the forest.

He slowed and tried to quietly move to her side, but she suddenly turned to look at him,

"Do you remember the first few times you took me with you into the woods?"

Edward looked at Bella in confusion,

"I was so scared of them then, so scared I'd trip and hurt myself…I used to be so uncoordinated, remember? Always falling."

"Bella…Bella, love, you're scaring me."

"But now…" Bella ran her right hand over the smooth pale, marble skin and laughed nervously, "…now I'm perfect."

"Bella for the love of God, please tell me what's wrong!" Edward pleaded, falling to his knees next to his wife, "Are you sick? Bella do you have what Alice has? Bella, please tell me what's wrong!"

Bella shook her head slowly, and then seemed to focus on Edward, as if noticing his presence just then,

"I'm sorry I got so angry. I'm sorry I made you angry at me."

"It's alright, Bella, it's my fault I never should have…"

"Yes you should have. I was going to…_hurt_ that poor man. I would have."

"But why Bella? Please, please, tell me what's going on. Why are so angry?"

Bella shook her head, "I…it's stupid. And selfish. If I tell you, you'll hate me more than anything in world."

"I could never, Bella. You know that."

Bella shook her head again.

"If you…don't want to tell me, could you show me? Disperse your shield?"

"Sorry. I can't. Could…could you just stay here with me?"

"Of course."

Edward sat down on the stone next to Bella and leaned his head on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry Edward."

"You have nothing to be sorry for. You never do."

Back in the Cullen house, the two vampires were mulling over the best way to tell House their family history while Leah, still in wolf form, stared at the shredded remnants of her clothes in exasperation.

Emmet turned away from Carlisle and walked over to Leah.

"Uh…I know you probably don't want to, but if you really need some clothes and you're willing to ignore vampire scent for awhile, you can run upstairs and grab some of Rose's things."

Leah looked over at House, who was still sprawled on the couch, staring at the ceiling, and then back at Emmet,

"I swear we won't tell him anything until you get back. I guess you'd be the best one to tell him anyway, right?"

Leah let out a menacing bark of agreement and padded up the Cullen's staircase.

House watched her go, "I could see how ripping your clothes off every time you turn into a wolf could be a bit inconvenient."

Leah made one of those throaty warbling noises the Quileute's used for laughter in the wolf form.

He looked around, suddenly aware of another presence in the room.

Renesmee had appeared in the room, having slipped past Carlisle and Emmet unnoticed and was now sitting next to the curmudgeonly doctor and staring at him, unspeaking.

"Great." House muttered, "Creepy little girl vampire…"

"I could show you." Ness said.

"Excuse me?"

"I could show you everything you need to know about us."

"Fine. That works for me, I guess."

Renesmee reached out and set her hand on House's.

"Oh _shit_." Emmet growled, as House's eyes widened as his mind flooded with memories that were not his own.

_Hunting in the woods, the taste of elks blood, playing with Jacob, listening to stories of the Quileute's from Billy Black, Grandpa Carlisle explaining all the paintings in his room, Aunt Alice looking sad and thinking about her past, Uncle Emmet and Aunt Rose making funny noises all night, Grandpa Charlie glowering at Edward when he thought I wasn't looking, everyone's skin in the daylight, sparkling like crystal, the Volturi marching in perfect lockstep back into the woods, Leah smiling tentatively as she and mommy and Jacob take me to Seattle, Daddy playing his piano and smiling, Mommy laying on the table after I was born, not moving as Daddy pumps her chest and screams at Jacob._

House suddenly broke off from Ness's contact and lurched to his feet. He stumbled slightly before grabbing his cane and looking around the room in a daze.

He looked down at Nessie, blinked once in surprise, and then limped towards the stairs.

"House…" Carlisle said, but the human ignored him as he slowly trudged up the stairs,

"House I know it's a lot to take in, but we need to focus on the problem right now."

House continued to ignore him, and Carlisle and Emmet followed House up the stairs.

"House…" Emmet said, but the human continued to ignore them as he made a beeline for Edward and Bella's room, "House what are you…"

The human doctor slammed the door closed in his two vampire pursuers faces, and they heard the metallic scrape of the lock as House flipped it closed.

"Oh, nice going Leeches," Leah growled, as she came out of Emmet and Rosalie's room wearing a sun dress that didn't quite fit on her. She knocked quietly on the door,

"Doctor House, it's me Leah, could you let me in please?" she asked, her voice tinged with forced sweetness and desperation; she was already suffering from being separated from her imprint.

The only response was a loud scrape of furniture being moved as House barricaded the door.

"Well that's great." Carlisle growled, "He's flipped his lid, hasn't he?"

Leah turned to glare at him, but said nothing. She leaned against the wall before sinking down into a sitting position.

"He'll come out. As soon as he accepts what's happened."

"Well that's great," the Vampire patriarch repeated. "But in the mean time what the hell are _we_ supposed to do?" Carlisle stated, sounding frustrated.

"In the mean time, we go back downstairs and think," Emmet supplied, tugging on Carlisle's shoulder, "We keep…diagnosing. Just because he's flipped out, doesn't mean we can't figure out something to test, right?"

"It more than likely does, actually." House shouted from inside Edward and Bella's room.

Emmet rolled his eyes,

"Let's go."

An hour later, as Carlisle and Emmet argued in the living room and the rest of the Vampire clan sat around watching, Edward and Bella returned to their home.

Edward slipped into the main floor and went up to Alice's room, while Bella, still trying to stick to herself, deftly leapt from the ground up to the window of her and Edward's room and slipped inside.

She'd been distracted, and was therefore surprised to see Dr. House sitting on the leather couch, which had been pushed up against the door, and watching a movie on the small plasma screen TV Edward had bought for their room.

"What…" Bella blurted, surprised, "What are you doing?"

House shifted his blue eyed glare to her for a few moments, then back to the TV,

"Yeah, fine, come right in, no one in here is in the middle of a mental breakdown or anything."

"It's _my _room."

"Semantics."

House turned up the volume on the TV.

"…_keep it quiet."_ a voice sounded from the massive speakers attached to the flat screen.

Curious, Bella turned to look at the flickering screen.

A unit of futuristic soldiers was picking their way through a bizarre looking industrial setting that was half covered in a black, fungus like growth.

Bella vaguely remembered having seen the movie before,

"_Aliens_? Why are you watching _Aliens_?"

House held a finger to his mouth and made a shushing noise, before growling, "Just making sure this movie hasn't been ruined for me."

On screen, one of the soldiers approached a woman who was dangling from a wall and began to lift her head up.

The woman's eye suddenly snapped open, accompanied by a loud squeal of music; Bella leapt backwards and snarled; she'd forgotten that part.

"_Top, get over here we got a live one!"_ the soldier shouted

"_Please…kill me…"_ the woman on the wall begged."

Bella looked away, and saw that House was watching the movie with intense scrutiny.

The action grew ever more frantic, until the woman attached to wall started to scream and an alien burst out of her chest.

House paused the movie, staring at the screen for a few moments.

"Okay. Still good." House said, before hitting play again and tossing the remote aside. He fixed Bella with his blue eyed glare, "You're kind of insane, you know that?"

"Look," Bella whispered, sitting down next to House, "I shouldn't have done…what I did earlier. But I…"

"I wasn't talking about that. _That_ I understand. I was thinking more along the lines of your utter lack of any instinct for self preservation."

Bella stared at the bizarre human, "What do you mean, _you understand that_?"

House narrowed his eye's and spoke in a harsh whisper "Pardon my language sweetheart, but you're a bit of a selfish bitch."

"_What_?"

"You grew up in a broken home, right?"

"No. My parents were divorced, but I always had a family."

"Daddy never knew how to be a father, mommy treated you like a best friend, doesn't sound like much of a family to me." House began ticking points off on his fingers, "You sat in the background as a kid, never knew how to interact with strangers, never had any friends except the one's that you stumbled upon; the ones you did have you threw away at the first sign of something better…"

"That's not true!"

"Oh really? When was the last time you talked with any of those old high school buddies your daughter showed me?"

"Wait, Renesmee used her gift on you? When?"

House shrugged, "There's no telling what shenanigans your little half demon spawn could get up to when you're hiding in the woods, huh?"

Bella growled, but House forged on, "But all of a sudden the worlds greatest, most perfect and happy family wandered into your life…" House voice filled with mocking anger, "And you knew what you were missing out on. You took one look at Sulky and his happy family and that was all she wrote." House started to spin his cane around in his hand, "Not only did you have an in, you had a perfect in. To the thing you always wanted the most; a happy little family of your own." House shook his head, "Poor little Eddie, he didn't stand a chance after you saw him, did he? But now this perfect little world you thought was going to be yours for eternity is falling apart, and you're ready to do whatever you have to protect it."

Bella's eyes widened, but she didn't voice any denials. Instead she sank down on the couch next to the human doctor and stared blankly at the TV screen.

"That isn't how it happened." she whispered, voice thick with tears she couldn't shed. "That isn't all I wanted…I wanted to be loved. By someone who could show me they meant it."

House looked over at her, a perfect target for his rapier like cynical wit to reduce to a puddle of emotionally destroyed goo, just like it did whenever he saw the opportunity to ruin someone's day for his own amusement. He saw his target, bare and open…and didn't strike.

"Like I said. I understand."

Bella looked over at him in confusion.

"I understand because I was in your _exact_ position. I know what it's like to have a magic hall pass to a perfect world, a perfect family. And then you get to watch it melt away before your eyes."

"What happened?" Bella asked.

House shrugged and got to his feet. Bella stood up and set a hand on his back as the doctor turned to start pushing the couch away from the door.

" Dr. House, I want to know."

"The exact same thing that's happening to you. Only I couldn't stop it," House said, without turning. "But lets not let that happen here, shall we?" he strained to move the couch, which gave way slowly until Bella gave it a firm shove, sending it sliding into the far wall and away from the door.

"You go…I'm not ready to face everyone after they heard all that."

House shrugged, "So the super hearing vampire thing isn't a myth? Thought so. Well, in case you didn't notice, I was whispering. Pretty sure not even you vampire relations could hear me over the sound of Sigourney Weaver battling the world's nastiest termite infestation." House pointed at the TV, where the embattled colonial marines were blasting away at their fearsome but apparently not bullet proof alien enemies.

"So, She Hulk. You ready?"

Bella glowered back; the emotional connection did not seem to proof against House's attitude.

Not bothering to wait for a reply, House unlocked the door and swung it open,

"Lets go, Lover Girl!" He barked as he stumped past Leah, who jumped to her feet and rushed after him, "Time to see how big a mess Pretty Boy and Eminem have made."


	8. Equipment

_Sorry it took me so long to get this fic out, kiddies. Long story short, between the mass amount of classes, EMT training and work I've got myself into, things are not going so well. Oh, and My G/F and I broke up; wasn't messy or anything, but it definitely didn't help, also, she's proofreading this, so that just brings us to a whole new level of awkward, huh? _

_But, it's come to point where it's just like f*%k it, lets write. So I've got my death metal cranked, a good stiff drink in hand, and keyboard in front of me._

_Strap in children._

Dr. Gregory House rapped Leah with his cane as he limped past the young werewolf,

"We have a dangerous mythological predator to save from unknown afflictions! Well, maybe I should say we have _another_ kind of dangerous mythological predator to save from unknown afflictions. Christ, I hope this doesn't mean ghosts are real too..."

Leah stared after House incredulously as he continued his one man narration all the way down the upstairs hallway in the Cullen's mansion to the wide, spiraling staircase.

Bella emerged from her room behind House, and Leah fixed her with a hard stare,

"What were _you_ doing in there?"

Bella shrugged her shoulders, "Don't ask me, I just live here." she murmured, before following in Houses wake. She didn't get far before Leah ran to catch up to her fresh imprint's side.

"Is everything all right now, Greg?" she asked house, as the cantankerous M.D. carefully navigated the stairs down to the Cullen's massive living room.

House froze, and slowly turned his head until he pinned Leah under his blue eyed glare,

"_Never_ call me Greg."

Leah froze at the sudden anger in Houses voice, but before she could say anything to apologize, House clumped down the stairs into the living room, where he found the annoying whigger vampire locked in a debate with the equally annoying do-gooder vampire.

"How can it _not _be an option? If something in her brain dislodged itself and ground into something else, it might have cut off some kind of brain function…"

"Son, how would that have happened? Our bodies are frozen solid. Motionless."

"'Fraid that's not the case, actually."

The two Vampires turned to look at House as walked over to the vampires. He casually snatched the black sharpie out of Carlisle's hand.

"Rule number one, you must have a pulse to use the white board." House took the marker and scrawled _Ischemic Stroke_ next to the list of symptoms.

"_Stroke_?" Carlisle demanded.

House shrugged, "Full body strokes are a bit rare, but not rare enough to justify that tone of voice."

"Ignoring the fact that Alice's body has been frozen into what amounts to stone, how do explain a stroke of that magnitude at her age?"

"She's what? A hundred twenty something?"

"She can't age!"

House rolled his eyes, "_David_'s looked about the same since Michelangelo took his last chisel stroke. That doesn't mean he is the same. Its gotten weathered, the molecules have broken down, some German tourist has knocked off a bit to take home as a souvenir."

"Your point?"

"My point is that not even a statue stays the same, vampire. Everything changes over time." House pointed to Emmet, "Marshal has a point, much as I hate to admit it. Some old clot that had been forming in her brain before she went Lucy Westenra might have broken loose…"

"Uh…who's Lucy Westenra?" Leah asked, interrupting House.

The assembled vampires turned to look incredulously at Leah. "What?" the werewolf demanded, angrily.

House continued on, ignoring her. "Something might have worked loose, causing a clot, causing a stroke…"

"Causing a coma which has lasted three days?" Carlisle demanded.

"You know, I really think we need to go over our assignments again. You're the one who's supposed to be agreeing with me all the time, remember? Anyway, it's possible it's caused a coma, or maybe it just dug up into the brain and fried some neuron processes. In any case, it doesn't matter because however semi-okay sounding the theory is, we can't test it. No Cat scan, no MRI, no way to check the brain and see if there's anything wrong." House limped around the room, slowly circling his ad hoc "team" and gazing around the room. His baleful blue eyes fell on the austere, white furnishings, the brand new flat screen TV and the half vampire demon child who was watching him intently from the entrance to the disused looking kitchen area.

House muttered something under his breath about things that could never be unseen and gross violations of his psychic privacy; and then his blue eyes widened and he spun on his heel, regarding the Cullen's like a lion eyeing its prey.

"So, vampires. Demon Spawn over there can do show and tell with her memory, huh?"

Bella let out a deep growl from the back of her throat. "Her name…is Renesmee"

House shrugged. "Demon Spawn is easier to pronounce. She shares memories. Sulky reads minds, and Living Dead Girl can see the future, or so you think." House ran his gaze along the vampires, lingering on each one. "What can the rest of you lunatics do?"

***

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, Dr. Cuddy was trying desperately to convince two very dubious police officers that House was missing.

"So, you say this guy has gone missing because he dodged a conference?" one of them asked.

"No I'm saying he's gone missing because he left his PSP and wallet here."

The cops exchanged a look, and then turned back to Cuddy. "Ma'm are you sure you don't have any…_stronger_ evidence?"

"I thought that was your job!" Cuddy snapped back.

"Uh-huh. I tell you what Doctor, we'll go ahead and file a report, but we really can't classify him as missing until he's been gone for twenty-four hours."

"But…"Cuddy began, but one of the cops interrupted her.

"He'll probably turn up later. Maybe he just met some bimbo in the bar or something. He could just be ducking you or something."

"Though I can't imagine why…" the other cop muttered, as both the police officers turned and walked out of the room, leaving Cuddy to fume in their wake.

***

Back in the Cullen's mansion, House was flipping through a pad of tallow note book paper filled with a precise accounting of the Cullen's and their various abilities.

Smiling happily, he looked up at up at Edward who was standing by the wall House was using as a dry erase board.

Edward glowered back and began to write on the wall, trying to ignore the low hiss his mother let out.

First he wrote _Carlisle-Medical guru/annoying, _then _Jasper-closest to human eater/mood altering cheater/possible defibulator_, and the list went on until all of the Cullen's and the two present werewolves names were scrawled on the wall, each with a list of what house deemed as their skills and an analogy for a piece of medical equipment.

When the list was done, House turned to his audience and managed very smug smile; especially for someone who was receiving some very menacing glances from a large coven of vampires.

"So," he flipped his cane up unto his shoulder, "Any questions?"


	9. Distractions

_Authors Note: Out of curiosity, did any of you actually get the "Aliens" joke from chapter 7? Anyone? Has anybody actually seen "Aliens"? Anyone?_

There was a moment of silence as once again the vampires were stunned into silence by House's uncaringly rude antics.

Surveying the crowd, House grunted in annoyance by their lack of immediate response.

Finally, Bella broke the silence;

"MRI?"

House looked at the scrawled list on the wall behind him,

"Yeah, that's what it says."

"I'm…I'm a _coat rack_?" Rosalie demanded.

"Mm-hm, only thing you're good for in this situation. Sorry, but the whole irresistible beauty skill of yours isn't as useful here as it could be." House cocked his head, "Why are you in here again?"

"I live here."

"You told us to gather everyone together." Emmet pointed out.

"No, I told you to make a list of everyone's scary little vampire superpowers so I could figure out if any of you might be more useful than an overdramatic teenage girl. Jury's still out on that one by the way. Now, back to the useful bloodsucker's question, you're an MRI because, and I quote…" House snapped up the pad of note book paper and read aloud from it "'When I use my gift it's like I become aware of the aura around the people I love. I sense them, their presence and shield them from harm.', oh isn't that just _precious_."

"But how does that help me to figure out what's wrong with Alice?"

House limped over to the youngest Cullen,

"Well, actually, it depends. Use that neat little trick of yours right now."

"What?"

"I said, use it… on Sulky over there." House pointed to Edward, "Block him off from all the nasty things the world can do to him."

"But why…"

"Now is not the time for self confidence issues, Bella! Do you want Alice to die or do you want to save her life?"

"Yes." Bella whimpered, surprised by House sudden change in tone; across the room, Edward bristled, his protective instincts flaring.

"Then close your eyes, and throw shield around Eddie."

"O…okay…" Bella closed her eyes and concentrated, letting her innate shielding snap out to enfold her husband, "I'm doing it."

"What do you see?"

"I see…I see…"

"Stop being dramatic!" House sighed, "Think of this as a chemistry problem or something. Be clinical, don't think with your emotions, think with your mind."

"This only works _when I use my emotions_." Bella snapped. But at the same time she doing her best to think, to see…she saw the magnificent point of light that was Edward when she reached out to enfold him with her shield.

"What do you see?" House demanded, his blue eyes narrowing as he watched the slight twitches on Bella's face.

"I see light. A tall figure made of light."

"I take it that's Galahad?"

"Yes."

"Focus. Try and see _into_ the bright light." House said, wincing at his words as soon they were out of his mouth.

Bella concentrated and the pool of light became more defined, taking on the rough shape of a human(or vampire) figure. Within that form she could roughly make features…a face; eyes that shone with the light of heaven…lips that…lips…

Bella's eyes snapped back open.

"What? Did it work?" House demanded, leaning in close to her face,

"Um…kind of. I got distracted."

House's face fell and he let out a mournful sigh.

"Because you were thinking of lover boy."

"I think so."

House looked over at Edward and then back at Bella; even to him it was easy to spot the word being exchanged between the two, even though neither one was speaking; the love that bordered on obsession the two shared was as obvious as an anchor chain wrapped around their necks.

Destructive and beautiful, insane and glorious, it would, under most circumstances, be a thing of such wonder it could bring whole worlds to a halt; a fire that burned deep and fierce in their hearts. But here, as in everything, if one looks to close ugly details might surface.

How much of that fire that burned in Edwards soul might come from the yearning he'd had for her blood? How much of that all consuming obsession he'd acquired for Bella be chalked up to simple feeling of loneliness after decades of being alone and watching his parents and siblings bask in each others affection?

And how much could dear Bella's love be avarice for the perfect world of the Cullen family and the arms of the perfect man? How much could it have been the need for someone who, unlike her parents, could focus solely on her?

Such questions, in the end, do not matter.

The two still stand as pillars of that vexing and wondrous emotion that we all pursue and fear; love. Across a hundred years and thousand miles, they have found each other, and against all odds seem to live the cliché we, even with our modern armor of cynicism, all pursue.

Happily.

Ever.

After.

And none of that really mattered to one Dr. Gregory House, so he felt perfectly justified in knocking the pair of them ass over teakettle off of their pillars of undying love and back into cold hard reality.

As his blue eyes shifted back and froth between the two vampires, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the bottle of Vicodin pills.

He popped one in his mouth and inhaled sharply.

"Alright, that's it." House snapped, clomping across the room to stand between Edward and Bella, "If you two don't knock off the star crossed lovers act _right the hell now_ I will beat you into submission with a copy of _Sense and Sensibility_!"

"I don't think you have your authors correct…" Emmet began, but he was silenced by House's merciless glare.

"You two have all the time from here until the planet is sucked into the sun to get all googly eyed over each other and make out, so can we focus please? I know at least one of you has a vested interest in keeping little old Alice alive and kicking…" House sent a meaningful glance at Bella.

Edward cocked his head and frowned, and house whirled and snapped his can up and into his face like he was aiming a .45 automatic,

"And no reading my mind, Obi Wan." House set the cane back on the ground, "She-Hulk, you keep working on the life sign idea with Call Girl." House pointed at Rosalie to show who he was talking about, "Let me know if there's any progress."

"Why didn't just start out with Rose then?" Bella angrily demanded,

"Because if you can't handle doing your thing with lover boy, what makes you think you can handle it with Alice, surrounded by your desperate family of annoying vampires?"

Before Bella could answer, he clumped over to Jasper, who sat in corner, visibly distressed about being away from Alice's bedside.

"Calm down, Defib." House snapped; he took the bottle of Vicodin back out of his pocket and offered it to Jasper, who stared back stonily, "Fair enough." House said, tucking the bottle away again, "Have you ever brought the dead back to life with that neat little talent of yours?"

"_What_?" Jasper demanded,

"I'll take that as a no. You know how your trick works, right?" with out bothering for an answer, House went on, "You stimulate the release of hormones in the body. Hormones cause emotion, emotion causes moods and voila, you're a walking psychotropic." House turned and limped towards the stairs, with the suddenly even more confused coven of vampires in tow. He started his slow limp up the winding stair case, but before his foot touched the second step, he found himself lifted quickly into the air and carried to the top of the steps before he could blink.

Back on his feet again, he turned to find Emmet standing behind him and smirking.

"Thought you could use a lift…" the massive vampire began, but he was cut off by a loud snarl from the bottom of the stairs; Leah was not taking the hulking vamps manhandling of her imprint very well.

She dashed to the top of the stairs, already visibly trembling as she prepared to phase.

"Stop!" House shouted, and Leah froze; Emmet snickered, and house pointed a finger in his face; "Shut up." House barked, and Emmet's face froze. House turned to clump down the hall, ignoring the vampires and werewolves that followed in his wake.

Squaring his shoulders in outraged dignity, House limped down the hall, moving even slower than before.

"This isn't over." Leah hissed at Emmet as she moved to catch up with House.

House stopped outside of Alice's room and pointed at Jasper;

"You, in. Everyone else, wait here."

Jasper followed House inside,

"Now, let's begin treatment number one." House said, turning to look at Jasper.

The blond vampire was staring back blankly at House. His eyes, House suddenly noticed,

were darker than the rest of his family's. House thought for a moment, then cursed loudly and stormed back out of the room.

"When was the last time he ate?" House demanded.

"What?"

"When was the last time he ate?" House repeated as Jasper followed him out of the room.

House pointed at Jasper's dark eyes, "That's what happens to your eyes when you haven't sucked down some A Positive, right?"

"Yes…b-but how did you know that?" Carlisle asked, flabbergasted by the human doctors sudden supposition.

"World's Greatest Diagnostician, remember?" House glowered over Jasper, "I can't really work if my 'equipment' keeps thinking about ripping my throat open."

"I'm fine." Jasper barked, but a slight twitch on his face when House's scent hit him showed the truth.

"Jasper, maybe you should hunt." Esme said, stepping forward to stand next to Carlisle.

"I'm not leaving."

"Jasper please. If you lose control and attack House, we might lose our best chance to save Alice…"

"I'm _not_ leaving." Jasper said again, moving back into the doorway.

"Or, you could lose it, attack the jerk and then have to deal with killing a Quileute's imprinted." Emmet added.

Jasper froze.

"And then the treaty would pretty much be null and void. After that…what do you think would happen?"

Jasper blinked and looked uncertainly at his family and at Leah and Jacob; the two wolves looked steadily back, both seemed ready to strike if he made a move towards House.

"Jas, dude, come on." Emmet stepped forward and set a hand on Jaspers shoulder, "I know you want to stay here but if you can't concentrate, if you lose control…"

"If _I _lose control…what about him?" Jasper demanded, pointing at House, "He's been running amok since he got here!"

"Oh would you leaches _please cut it out_?" Leah suddenly growled, "You need to feed. If you don't, you probably lose your only chance to save Alice. Even if you suck it up, House needs you at your best. Which is _not_ where you're at right now; so go out, hunt, get your thirst under control and show up here when you're ready to save Alice instead of mourn for her."

The silence after Leah was finished spoke volumes.

House smiled and pointed at her while looking around at the various vampires,

"If there are no other speakers, I'll rule this debate in favor of the bitch." House winked at Leah, "You see what I did there?" without waiting for a response he turned back to Jasper, "I'll have Sulky keep monitoring her condition while your gone, so stick close. If anything changes, I'll set fire to something to signal you."

House turned to look back at Alice; the small vampire was lying in the same frozen, ridged pose she'd been in earlier.

"There's no hurry. The first treatment never works anyway." he muttered

"What?" Jasper asked, sharply

"Nothing. Run along and start slaughtering the little animals."

Jasper reluctantly took a step back and edged further down the hall, moving like an unseen force was holding him back.

"Perhaps we should all go out." Carlisle said, trying to ease Jasper's tension.

"Bella and I can stay." Edward insisted, "We just…ate. We'll be fine. Besides, we need to keep an eye on House"

House snorted in amusement and Edwards back stiffened before he went over to sit next to Alice. House turned to leave without a word.

The vampire coven looked for some word of explanation but House just put on a self satisfied as he limped back down the hallway. Edward stared stonily at the wall, staying silent.

"The hell with it, we'll figure it out later." Emmet growled, before dashing down the hallway, vaulting the stairs and heading out the front door. The rest of the Cullen's followed closely behind him.

"Well…alone at last." House said looking over at Leah, "I suppose at some point in time we're going to have to deal this whole you being wholly-and-unconditionally in love with me thing, huh?"

Leah smiled happily, "I think we do, yes."

"_I _think it'll wait until I've had a sandwich. I'm starving."

"Oh. Alright."

House froze for a moment and inhaled slowly.

"This is dangerous. Very, very dangerous."

House half turned, a far off look on his face,

"Walk with me. Let's have a chat…"

"Of course. What did you want to talk about?"

"Tell me everything there is to know…about being a werewolf."

_Meanwhile, in P.P.T.H.;_

"This is ridiculous. This is completely asinine." Dr. Taub whined as he set up a line of plastic 88mm cannons on top of Dr. Cuddy's desk

"I notice you're down here with the rest of us." Thirteen snapped back, as she carefully set up an array of green toy soldiers behind a wall of plastic fortifications.  
"I think those are supposed to be American soldiers." Chase pointed out as he set up a fleet of landing craft on the carpet.

"So?"

"So last time I checked, the Americans were invading Normandy, not defending it. You should be using the German toy soldiers."

"What does it matter?"

"Fine. But if House gets back and doesn't like what he sees, we're all going to pay for it."

Foreman laughed from were he stood by the clear glass wall leading facing the hospitals main floor; the Doctors had pulled the blinds shut and he was keeping watch.

"House doesn't have anything on us. Our 'deepest, darkest secrets'?" Foreman quoted, rolling his eyes, "He's just screwing with us in a way that's even more juvenile than normal, if that's possible."

"Apparently it is." Cameron muttered as she used fishing line and duct tape to hang model aircraft from the ceiling, "Does anybody else feel that we're taking this just a little too seriously?"

"No." Chase returned, "One thing I've learned over the years working here is to never take any threat House makes lightly." he glanced up at Thirteen, who was now carefully arraying plastic German soldiers in _Whermacht _grey inside a concrete bunker with a self satisfied smile, "Are you…enjoying this?" he asked.

"Yeah."

The room came to a halt,

"What? This is actually…kind of interesting." she looked around and shrugged, "It sucks that we're being held hostage to do this, but let's face it; we're playing with toy soldiers instead of working right now."

"Our work, of course, being helping sick people. I can see how setting up plastic incarnations of violence in just the right way is a more worthy goal." Taub scoffed, "That's secretly what I wanted to be doing through all those years of med school."

"No, you wanted to rake in tons of money doing tummy tucks on fat rich people." Chase replied, going over to the stack of cardboard boxes by the door to retrieve more materials.

Before Taub could reply, Wilson slipped in through the door, checked behind him and closed it quietly.

"Are you sure you weren't followed?" Foreman asked, looking at Wilson dubiously.

"Wait…I thought you'd decided to be the bigger man and not get involved with this idiocy?" Wilson asked.

"I did. But I also wanted to come down here and make sure no one catches them making morons out of themselves in the Dean of Medicines office."

"Oh…that's big of you."

"He just wants to say he was here in case House comes back and it turns out he wasn't just screwing with us." Chase pointed out, "Where have you been, anyway?'

"Setting up my alibi."

"You think that's going to save you?" Thirteen asked,

"No, but I like to at least make the effort." Wilson looked around before speaking again; "I just got off the phone with Cuddy. House is still missing."

The room stopped again as all eyes turned to Wilson.

"I thought he was just skipping out on his speech?" Taub asked,

"That's what I thought to. But apparently she's found his IPod, PSP and wallet in his room, so unless there's a magical place with lots of distractions, where bourbon and strippers are free…"

"He's in the hotel bar something, charging everything to his room." Chase dismissed, walking over to the German lines around Cuddy's desk with an armful of plastic Panzers.

"She's already checked the hotel form top to bottom. And all of her credit cards and cash are still in her purse."

"So he took cash and went out to a different bar." Chase said, shrugging his load of toy tanks unto the floor.

"When has he ever had cash?" Cameron asked, worried.

"Once again, he's screwing with us." Foreman opinioned.

"I think…" Wilson began, but he was cut short when the phone on Cuddy's desk began to ring.  
"Who is it?" Chase asked Taub, who was still closest to the desk.

"Planning on answering it?" Taub griped, leaning over to check the display "Private name, private number."

"That's odd someone could get Cuddy's private office line without…" the voicemail suddenly kicked on, coming out over the phones speaker.

"_You have reached the desk of Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine…"_ Cuddy's voice spoke, _"Unfortunately I'm out of the office right now, if you need to contact me immediately, try my cell or pager. Otherwise leave a message after the beep. Good bye."_

"Pick up the phone!" a voice barked after the shrill beeping tone had sounded, "If you guys are in there, and you had better be, pick-up-the-phone."

"That's House!" Thirteen said, surprised.

Taub reached down and snatched the receiver off the cradle, knocking over a few German artillery crews in the process

"Hello…yeah…put you on speaker? Hold on." Taub hit a button on the phone, switching the call to speaker.

"Good morning Angels." House growled, "I hope we're all enjoying our little history exercise?"

"This is inane." Chase said, "And when are you going to call Cuddy? She's looking all over for you."

"As much as I'd like to give Dr. Mommy a hug and cuddle up with her for the night, I've unfortunately been kidnapped by vampires."

The room went silent again, and then the assembled doctors burst out raucous laughter.

"That is the dumbest excuse I've ever heard you come up with." Wilson gasped, "Seriously, where are you?"

"Outside the window."

The laughter ceased as the doctors looked over at the blind covered windows behind Cuddy's desk.

"I'm not, really, but I needed you to shut up." House said, leaning on the countertop of the island in the Cullen's kitchen and facing the window. He took a large bite of the sandwich he'd managed to put together form the unsurprisingly sparse amount of food in the Cullen's kitchen, "Hope you don't mind, I'm kind of multitasking here." House said, speaking around a mouthful of sandwich.  
"Would it matter if we did?" Foreman asked over the speaker phone,

"No. Now what I need is for one of you to call Cuddy and have her call off the search before she gets the FBI involved. Tell her that I was spirited away by a rich family to help their sick daughter."

"You think she's going to believe that? Or forgive you for skipping out on your speech?" Wilson asked,

"Probably not. But the truly massive amount of money I'm going to squeeze out of these people should shut her up." House looked around at the opulent kitchen and smiled, "Actually I should even be able to pay you back, Wilson."

"Really?"

"I didn't say I was going to. Just that I could." House took another bite of his sandwich.

"Wear are you, really?" Thirteen asked.

"Like I said before. I've been kidnapped by vampires and I'm sitting in the kitchen of their mansion and eating a sandwich."

"And these vampires that have kidnapped you are letting you use the phone because…" Foreman asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Oh they seem to be a bit distracted the werewolves."

"So there's werewolves now?"

"Yeah. One of 'em is in love with me, actually. It's cute." House washed down his two bites of sandwich with a swig of Pepsi.

"Ah. I see. What are you on?"

"Nothing but the usual. Which is more than enough when you think about it."

"And the vampire are distracting the werewolves…how?"

"Well there was a bit of a misunderstanding, I suppose. This other pack of werewolves heard that the vampire coven was holding a human hostage, which is apparently something their not supposed to be doing. So they got a bit pissed off and came running over to the vampires mansion, which, if you'll remember, is where I am. Now their out in the back lawn squaring off."

"Sounds…interesting." Chase said, his confusion apparent even over the phone.

House looked out the window at the two groups of Cullen's and Quileute's as they circled and snarled at each other while Jacob and Carlisle tried to calm things down "Not really. It's a lot like _West Side Story_; lots of singing and dancing but absolutely no action. Anyway, just checking in to make no one worried about me. And by the way, I have a professor of military history stopping by the hospital in three to make sure you guys did a good job. Wouldn't want our diorama to suffer from any historical inaccuracies, would we?" without waiting for a reply House hit the end button on the phone.

He took a few minutes to finish his sandwich and soda before standing up and limping through the open sliding glass doors and unto the Cullen's back deck,

"Hey!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, "Are you gonna hurry up and kill each other soon?!?"


	10. Run Away

_A/N: Sorry this took so long. I tell you what, if one of you can name the song House plays and who performs it, I'll get the next one out by the end of the month. _

_Forks, Washington. The Cullen Residence._

House was pleased to see his sudden outburst had thrown the opposing ranks of vampires and werewolves in shocked silence. He surveyed the newly arrived squadron of massive wolves with clinical disinterest before deliberately turning his back and walking back inside the house, idly noticing that the massive steel shutters that had been closed when he'd first arrived had been opened at some point. House wondered which of the vampires has taken time off from angst filled posturing to do something else, and why it couldn't have been something that was actually _useful_.

He slid the heavy sliding door shut with enough force that it hit home with a loud _thud_, before ambling over to the fridge and taking out another can of Coke. Opening it, he limped over to the kitchen table and sat down before propping his feet up on the polished surface and leaning back in his chair. After a few moments the door slide open again and Carlisle wondered in, closely followed by a stark naked native American man who was muscled like Adonis and scowling like Clint Eastwood. Like barbarian chieftains approaching an envoy of the Roman Empire, they slowly made their way across the room and stood before the human doctor.

"You people.," House said, sipping his Coke, "Are making things just a little impossible for me. Every time I come up with an idea, something dramatic happens. I'm sure that keeps your lives interesting, with lots of nice little gossip, like just when is the werewolf gonna pop the question to the demon spawn or…whatever."

Emmet slipped inside, following his father and keeping a wary eye on Sam. House's eyes darted to the newcomer and then fixed back on Sam. He heaved himself back to his feet and finished off his soda, leaving the empty can sitting on the table top. He limped a half circle around the still sitting vampire and werewolf leaders, stopping and leaning on a counter top when he was halfway between Emmet and the entryway between main living room of the Cullen's house and its kitchen.

"So, you came running when you heard that the scary Teen-People vampires had a human hostage, right?"

"Yes. Leah phased about half an hour ago and when she did…"

"You heard all about me, right? Communal telepathy in action?"

Sam looked surprised,

"Yes…but how did you know about that? Leah told us that she hasn't had time to fully explain our ways to you."

House smirked,

"Devil Child gives up more than she realizes when she does that whole memory share trick, I guess."

Sam's eyes hardened,

"And did she tell you that by revealing themselves to you the Cullen's have given themselves no choice but to either turn you…or silence you?"

Carlisle flinched, but before he could protest, House shrugged and said;

"Figured as much. Can't have people running around blabbing about y'know, Vampires being real. Could be disconcerting to the general public. But wouldn't this…imprint or whatever you call, form She-Bitch keep me from talking anyway? Kind of an if I give up the Vampires, I give up the wolves too sort of thing?"

Sam looked thoughtful,

"In any case, I don't plan on sticking around to find out. I have pressing engagements in not being surrounded by bloodsuckers and werewolves land." House reached behind him and slid a small pairing knife from the black and white knife block on the counter-top, "The original plan was to have you guys show up here and start a little fracas with the Sparklies…but since that didn't work the way I wanted it to, I'll have to improvise."

Without hesitation, House sliced the knife across the palm of his left hand, opening a deep, bloody cut. Emmet caught the smell in an instant, his face going blank as the sweet smell of human blood wafted across the room. He grabbed the sliding door's frame in support, gripping it so hard the stainless steel door stop, with a tortured squeal of bending metal, was almost rent apart. Edward shouted from outside as he read both Emmet's hunger and House's intentions. He made for the doors in a flash, but one of the younger Quileute's, misinterpreting his actions as an attack on the pack leader in the house, lunged forward and snapped his powerful jaws at Edwards leg, sending the red haired vampire sliding to the ground. Snarling in fury, Bella lunged forward and knocked the young wolf back from her mate; yelping in surprise, the wolf darted back to the safety of the larger mass of Quileute's. Before Edward could try and explain what was going on, the wolves charged forward.

Inside, Sam had shot to his feet and was moving to get between House and Emmet while Carlisle was trying to calm his son's bloodlust. He was having some success, too, until House, with an exasperated roll of his eyes, flicked his left hand at Emmet, sending thick drops of blood from his freshly opened wound spattering across the leviathan vampire's face. Letting loose with a primal snarl, Emmet started to lunge across the room. In a split second, Sam had phased into his wolf form, his huge bulk almost filling the kitchen. He batted one huge paw into the air in front of Emmet, catching the vampire in mid leap and sending him flying out the back door and into mass of vampires and wolves in the back yard.

Inside, as Sam let loose a deep growl and stalked out the ruined sliding doors and unto the back porch, the doctor slipped quietly into the house, listening contently to the sounds of the coming battle he'd kicked off. He paused to snap up a velvet cloth form a table, spilling the arrangement of white roses that had been resting on it across the bare wooden floor. Whistling happily to himself, he quickly tore the silver colored fabric in two and used one half to bind his wound, before tossing the other unto the floor behind him. He paused at a small end table and slid open the drawer mounted in it. Scooping up a handful of car keys, which he dropped in one of the pockets of his rumbled blazer, he opened the front door and looked around the front yard. Suddenly, something hit the side of the house with enough force to shake it to its foundations. House closed the door partially as Rosalie and Emmet rounded the corner, pursued by four of the massive Quileute wolves. The wolves and Vampire squared off for a moment as if unsure they wanted to launch an attack, but one of the younger wolves, who hadn't been around the vampire as often as his elder siblings snarled at some move of the vampire and lunged forward towards Rosalie before one of the elders could stop him. Rosalie grabbed hold of the scruff of the wolfs neck and slung him across the lawn and into a patch of thick mud. Another of the hot tempered wolves followed his brother, forcing the other two unto the attack as well. They went after Emmet, who quickly shoved one away before the other tackled him to the ground; moving to quickly for House to track, Rosalie darted away, with both the wolf that had just attacked her and the one that had gone after Emmet and gotten pushed back in pursuit. Emmet and the other wolf, in the meantime, had become locked in a wrestling match that almost seemed friendly; clearly neither wanted to seriously hurt the other. As this snarling ball of brown fur and designer clothes rolled away from the Cullen's front porch, House opened the door and moved as quickly as he could across the yard towards the old barn where the vampire kept their collection of extremely expensive vehicles. The doctor kicked open a side door and walked inside. Long lines of florescent lights snapped on over head, activated automatically by motion sensors; their harsh light shone back brilliantly from the small fleet of multicolored sports cars and luxury autos arranged in two neat rows down either side of the barn. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a set of keys and hit the unlock button on its remote opener.

The headlights of a canary-yellow Porsche flashed twice in response.

"Oh my-my…" House gloated, limping over to it. He opened the door and flopped inside. As he started the car up, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and came up with a CD he'd taken from Edwards room earlier.

A fast guitar line erupted from the cars sound system, under cut with a rapid drum and cymbal beat.

"_Ain't a hope in hell…" _a gravel voiced singer began

"_Nothing gonna bring us down,_

_the way we fly, five miles off the ground…"_

The human revved the engine a few time before dropping the sports car in gear, and with a squeal of rubber it shot out into the empty space between the rows of vehicles; House cut the wheel sharply and the Porsche slid across the isle, its back end smashing across a Ferrari parked on the other side of the barn.

"_Because we shoot to kill and you know we always will,_

_It's a bomber! It's a bomber!"_

With the gas pedal pressed firmly to the floor board, the Porsche shot towards the Barn doors like a guided missile; it smashed the heavy wood gates to kindling, losing a headlight and side view mirror in the process. With the fast guitar line still blaring, the sports car skidded across the gravel drive,

"_Scream a thousand miles,_

_Feel the black death rising moan!"_

Outside the brawling vampire and werewolves seemed to have migrated to the front of the house, but few of them looked up when the yellow Porsche smashed it's way free from the barn, so intent were they on their own battles,

"_Firestorm coming closer,_

_Napalm to the bone!"_

Those few who deigned to glance over were greeted by the sight of House sticking his bandaged left hand out the window, middle finger raised.

"_Because you know we do it right,_

_A mission every night!_

_It's a bomber! It's a bomber! _

_It's a bomber!"_

With a guitar solo blasting, House shifted again and the Porsche sped down the gravel road leading from the clearing to the highway, taking the sharp turns at breakneck speed,

"_No night fighter,_

_gonna stop us gettin' through!_

_Sirens make you shiver,_

_You can bet my aim is true!_

_Because you knew we aim to please_

_Bring you to your knees!"_

In the light of the remaining headlight House spotted the asphalt of a highway ahead.

"_It's a bomber! It's a bomb…"_

Something slammed into the side of the Porsche, sending it spinning off the road and into the underbrush and trees of the forest. It almost overturned, but a small hand wrapped around the rear bumper and pulled it bodily back to earth.

Inside, face pushed awkwardly towards the door by the airbag that pinned him to the seat, House groaned in mixture of surprise and dismay.

He groaned again when the angel face of a beautiful young girl poked up on the other side of the ruined driver's side door.

The doctor growled something that sounded like "demon seed", but his speech was distorted by the airbag pressing on his face.

The girl wrenched the door from the cars frame and tossed it aside, and then ripped a hole in the side of the airbag, sending the air pouring out of it. House leaned back in the seat and looked skyward for a moment.

"How did you know?" he asked.

By way of reply, Renesmee set her hand on his, sending her memories to flash before House's eyes.

_The doctor paced around the Cullen's in a slow circle berating them for what he at the time though was their falsely vampiric nature, all the while casting glances around the room, analyzing. His eyes focused, just for a few seconds, on the open drawer of the end table by the door and the car keys inside. They flick across the interior of the living room and then out the window to the barn outside. He nods slightly. He knows this is where we keep the cars parked._

_Leah sitting outside mom and dads room with House barricaded inside. A small note slips out from under it, Leah picks it up, and read it, her eyes first growing hard, then going blank. Dad isn't here to read the doctors mind, and he knows it. He's planning something._

_After the doctor left the room, I slip inside. One of dad CD's is missing. I don't know why the human would take it, but he has. It's very strange._

_The Quileute's suddenly come in force and un-announced across the treaty line._

_I know what House wants. He wants to escape and is going to use a fight between my families as cover._

Renesmee moves her hand away from House's.

"Not bad, kid." House grunted, for the first time referring to Nessie as something other than "Devil Child".

"Someone could have been hurt. Or killed." Nessie stated calmly.

The doctor looked her in her eyes; no matter how calm she sounded, he could tell she was furious.

"No. They couldn't." he answered simply.

Renesmee narrowed her eyes and he explained further;

"The wolves and the vamps will snap and snarl. They'll even fight. But they won't hurt each other, not anymore. You showed me that."

Nessie sighed,

"They can all still be very _foolish_."

"They're only human." House returned, as he gingerly climbed out of the wrecked Porsche, "So what now? You're not going to hit me, are you?"

Renesmee shook her head,

"No, now you're going to go back and save Aunt Alice. Move it." Renesmee pointed back down the road, where a crowd of very angry looking vampires and Quileute's was rounding the corner in pursuit.

"Oh joy."


	11. Desperate Times

_A/N: Dammit! Since when does anyone who would read _this_ fic actually listen to Motorhead? Oh well, you guys win, here's the next. Oh, Twilight fans please make your friends listen to Motorhead; I would recommend listening to "Doctor Rock" at about page 85 of "Breaking Dawn". If you're an evil minded bastard (or bitch, if you prefer) you'll laugh hysterically for a good five minutes as the mental images run through your head. What can I say? Metal is my Muse. HaHa! Double entendre!_

_PS-Hey_ _Kaikuduo, using the internet to find the answer is cheating. But since I didn't tell you all you couldn't do that, good job being resourceful._

_PPS-Computer crashed; delays ensued, sorry._

_PPPS-Also an issue, I got into 40k. Kind of hard to keep my mind on this. I'd apologize, but…do a search on "Orks". _

_I'll wait._

_Back? Okay, now explain to me how that isn't more awesome than House OR Twilight._

_If you can, I'll dance at your wedding._

_Deal?_

_Seattle, Washington_

Cuddy was desperate; for the better part of a day she'd been trying to find House after he'd made a sudden, if not uncharacteristic disappearance.

She'd made a frantic search of the area around the hotel and conference center where she and the cantankerous diagnostician had been staying; that meant hours of searching in bars, restaurants, hotel bars and liquor stores had turned up nothing.

As she reluctantly gave up her search and started to walk back to the hotel, her blackberry began to buzz. She dug it out of her pocket and brought it to her ear;

"House?" she demanded.

"No its James…you still haven't heard from him?"

"No! I checked…wait have you?"

"Yes he…ah, checked in on us, I guess you could say…"

Deciding to skip over just what that meant, Cuddy exhaled an exasperated breath and told James to state just what, precisely, had happened to him.

"He's either volunteered to save some rich guys daughter or he's been kidnapped by Vampires."

"What?"

"That's what he said…"

"Well since both those options hinge on equally preposterous concepts, I'd guess he's lying and skipping out on the conference after all."

"What do you mean 'equally preposterous' concepts?"

"Either vampires are real or House has developed a sense of compassion."

"Oh. When you put it that way, I guess I should start stockpiling garlic."

Cuddy chuckled to herself, but the laughter did not sound pleasant.

"When I get my hands on him I swear…"

"…more paratroopers in this area, I think. Also you need to put up signposts for these town names…"

Cuddy shook her head to clear it, not sure what she'd just heard. "Wilson, what was that?"

"Uh, ah…History Channel turned up too loud…anyway, if I hear from House again I'll have him call you, bye."

Cuddy stopped short as the line went dead. _Has the whole world gone insane?_ She wondered.

_Princeton, New Jersey_

Wilson hastily ended his call with Cuddy and dropped his phone back in the pocket of his white lab coat. He turned and surveyed the warzone that had once been Cuddy's office. A heavy blue tarp, liberated from the maintenance department covered half the floor, placed there at the insistence of Thirteen and her bizarre attention to detail. On the tarp sat a fleet of model ships; landing craft, destroyers, freighters and a myriad array of grey plastic. The edge of the tarp closest to the desk seemed to mark the transition of "sea" to "land". It was covered with yet more landing craft and an army of tan, green and blue toy soldiers who were supported by Sherman tanks and amphibious personnel carriers. They in turn were struggling past an array of plastic fortifications towards a line of plastic bunkers, trenches and sandbags held by a rendition of the dreaded _Whermacht_ in 25mm scale. Miniature versions of their lethal 88 cannons and MG-42 machine guns stood ready in their fortifications to help repel the invasion. Behind the lines, American and British paratroopers rained out of C-47 transports that dangled form the ceiling on fishing line. On the floor behind the desk, their comrades who had reached the ground were posed amongst vacu-formed Styrofoam French villages as they tried to hold bridges and other lines of communication against counter-attacking German troops, complete with _Panzer_ support, while suspended from the ceilings were squadrons of three-quarter scale planes that hung in frozen combat with each other; a warzone in miniature that occupied Lisa Cuddys office just as completely as it's real life counterpart would have.

The team of press-ganged doctors who had painstakingly assembled the massive battleground over the previous few hours now stood and nervously watched as a thin young man wearing Buddy Holly glasses, ill fitting jeans and an un-tucked button down shirt carefully studied their handiwork.

"Okay," Taub whispered to the others, "As soon as he leaves, we take this stuff down, right?"

The other doctors looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Look," the short plastic surgeon explained, "This guy takes a look around and calls House, lets him know everything's…in place. And then we take everything down before he and Cuddy get back."

"After we just spent the last three hours putting it up?" Thirteen hissed.

"Hear me out; when they get back, we tell House that the cleaning staff came through and took everything down…"

"And what makes you think he won't ask them about that?" Foreman asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What makes you think he hasn't paid them off so they really _don't_ clean up?" Chase put in.

"Look I'm just trying to keep Cuddy from…" Taub trailed off as the man House had sent to check their handiwork approached the group of doctors,

"And admirable effort," the man declared, his grand tones clashing with his appearance, "A bit off, but it will work for the lecture tomorrow. Besides, the children should thoroughly enjoy this."

"Lecture?"

"Children?"

The man narrowed his eyes,

"Yes…Doctor House arranged for me to give a lecture to some of the children from the pediatric word. All very thoughtful of him, of course. What with most of them being terminal cases, no one ever seems to bother with their education; a dreadful loss I say. Even the frailest benefit from education, as Dr. House said." The teacher shook his head in awe, "He must really be a compassionate man."

Taub's mouth fell open, Foreman held his head in his hands while Chase and Thirteen exchanged looks. Wilson sighed in defeat; when House set a trap, he also set an anti tampering device.

_Is there ever any angle he doesn't cover?_ Taub wondered, as he thought of what Cuddy might do to them when she saw what they'd done to her office.

_Forks, Washington_

House squirmed uncomfortably in one of the high backed chairs at the Cullen's dining room table, while across from him, Renesmee glowered at him with more seriousness than any being in the body of a twelve year old girl had any business possessing.

Most of the Cullen's and Quileute Wolves stood behind her; the others blocked the doors out of the dining room. The room was quite large, with several beautiful pieces of art on the walls and soft lighting that played off gorgeously from the antique dining table and chairs. Nonetheless, to House it seemed like the dankest cell in an eighteenth century French prison with a perfect view of the Guillotine in the courtyard.

The one he had an appointment with at dawn…

It was a safe bet that the psychological domination he'd been building and holding over the array of supernatural creatures had been broken. Now he had to admit; he was scared. He'd been scared since Bella had held his hand over her heart and he realized it _wasn't beating_. He'd been scared when Leah had turned into a wolf right in front of his eyes, and no skeptic in the world could have explained the way that the angry little girl had invaded his mind and shown him memories that were not his own.

Yeah; he was scared. The hell with that, he was terrified.

And now after a botched escape plan had succeeded only in uniting his vampire jailors even more strongly with their shaky allies, the Quileute wolves, he was also pretty much screwed. It would be nigh impossible for him to put together another escape with the pretty boy mind reader watching him like a hawk.

Edward smiled slightly as he read Houses' thoughts. The human doctor didn't bother glaring at him.

"Doctor…" Renesmee began, breaking the thick, ominous silence that had pervaded since she had escorted him from the wreck of Alice's Porsche and back to the house after his chaotic escape attempt, "I think it's time we made things very clear. No one is going to hurt you," Leah snorted in amusement, and Renesmee amended, "Well, she might hurt you. But not fatally, I imagine."

The doctor's eyes narrowed as he tried to imagine just how Nessie was making her light, girlish voice sound so authoritative; across the table Edward and Bella were staring at their daughter in shock, while Jacob stood behind his young imprint, muscled arms crossed and a smirk on his face as if he expected nothing less from her.

"That being said, we really do need you to help us treat Alice. And we are prepared to keep you here as long as that takes. But I think that was already made clear to you."

"A prison with velvet walls?" House asked.

"That you hold the key to." Esme pointed out, "Save Alice, and you're free to go."

Rosalie let out a hiss of anger, but Emmet set an arm around her and whispered something in her ear. She calmed down a bit and smirked at Leah, who narrowed her eyes at the byplay.

"Stop it!" Renesmee barked, pointing an accusing finger that seemed to encompass all three guilty parties, "We are not going back down that path. I think the past hour should have taught all of you where it leads." The wolf and the two vampires looked back at the young half breed in surprise. Bella and Edward looked at each other again, unsure where their daughter had acquired this take charge attitude.

Carlisle, meanwhile, wondered how wise it had been to allow a quick study like Renesmee anywhere near someone like Gregory House.

"Now," Nessie continued, "You already set up one treatment. Is it actually viable, or were you just covering up your escape plan for a few hours?" she asked House,

"It might work. The reasoning is sound," the doctor answered, relaxing a bit in his chair.

"And how likely is it to succeed?"

"I have no idea. Never tried psychic analysis and manipulation as a treatment before," House admitted, "But it was the only option I could come up with at the time."

Renesmee steepled her fingers in front of her on the table top, "Are there any more conventional treatments you can think of?"

"Not off the top of my head, _frau Standartenfuher_." House snapped back; he'd gotten some of the wind back in his sails.

"Doctor, I am being very polite right now, especially given your actions earlier and the danger they put most of the people I love in. Please return the courtesy."

House leaned forward in his seat. "I'm being held hostage by over-dramatic vampires, werewolves and a little girl who is suddenly showing the personality traits of Josef Stalin. If I'm not 'courteous' normally, this really doesn't seem like the time to start." House glared back at the little girl, "I'll help you save Alice dearest, but I will not whistle happily while doing it. Got it?"

Renesmee sighed; she'd found his limits as surely as he'd found hers.

"Fine." She allowed, "When can we start?"

House leaned back in his chair,

"As soon as she's ready," he said, pointing at Bella.

"What do you see?" House demanded of Bella as they stood on the front lawn of the Cullen's estate, surrounded by the rest of the vampire coven and the two wolf packs,

"I…I can't…"

House kicked at a rut of earth that had been plowed up during the battle between the wolves and the vampires and sighed in exasperation.

"It's hard to…concentrate…"

House sighed and sent an exasperated glance skyward,

"Well, I was trying to avoid this. But…Knuckles!" House barked, pointing at Emmet, "Hold Romeo down!"

Emmet looked confused, while Edwards's eyes widened in outrage as he read House's thoughts.

"Now!" the diagnostician shouted at Emmet, who still hesitated until he felt a small tug on the sleeve of his jacket; he looked down to find Renesmee standing next to him. The young half vampire shook her head. House glared at Emmet.

Emmet stayed where he was.

"I think I know what you're planning," the young half vampire noted as she stepped forward to gaze up at the human, "And I know that my mother isn't ready for it yet."

"Oh, well as long as we have an unbiased opinion." House muttered, but Nessie ignored him.

"Is there anything else we can do, in the meantime?"

House shrugged, "I have some theories, yes."

"Such as?" Carlisle asked, hoping for something that wasn't _too_ extreme.

House limped across the yard to the side of the Cullen's mansion and drew a large red marker out of his pocket. He uncapped it and was preparing to scrawl something on the white siding when Esme let loose with a snarl and, in the blink of an eye, snatched the marker out of his and crushed it.

"Not again," She said, before storming back into the crowd.

House made a face, "Fine, we'll do this the old fashioned way," he said, before turning to face the vampires and wolves. "Immunity. Natural selection."

"What?" Sam asked, "What does that have to do with…"

House sighed and went on to explain, in very graphic terms, that when a vampire drank blood, in theory it drank not only the blood but all of the parasites, bacteria and infections that blood carries through the body of a living being. In a living organism, those would be dealt with by natural antibodies; however in a vampire's body, these natural defenses would have been killed off along with most of the other bodily functions when the change from human to vampire occurred.

"But why would it matter?" Rosalie demanded, House glared at her for a moment before explaining that when a vampire took blood from a human, it would presumably be from a healthy, free roaming target, rather than a sick one. So it would be clean, filtered human blood in essence, free of all the nasty pathogens in animal blood. But the Cullen's, with their strict "vegetarian" diet, were going straight to the source, each one picking off a half dozen animals to equal the satisfaction they'd gain from a single human. As they worked they way through the animal kingdom, the various creatures and pathogens inhabiting the blood of their prey built up in their bodies; as time wore on, random chance dictated that organisms that were adapted to the harsh environment that was the inside of their venomous vampiric bodies build up and multiply. As decades turned to centuries, organism continued to reproduce, gathering new material every time the vampires fed.

Eventually, they could gain enough mass to inhibit the synapses; and then, the whole show would come crashing down as the vampire ceased to function.

House finished; the vampires, especially Rosalie, looked aghast.

"So how do we test this theory?" Jacob asked, breaking the silence.

"We're skipping that and moving straight to treatment." House declared, with a meaningful glance at Bella, "We'll need Keflex, Invermectin, Penicillin…pretty much any drug with a fancy name and a large price tag."

"How many doses?"

"Doses? We're way past _doses_. We're going by pounds and gallons now. No reason to use a scalpel when you can use a sledgehammer. And let's hope this works before we have to skip to using straight bleach and a funnel." House turned to his vampiric "team",

"Well, what are you waiting for? Get to it!"

The doctor turned and began limping back towards the house, until Leah stepped in front of him, back in her human form and the clothes she'd borrowed from Rosalie.

"We need to talk," she proclaimed. "Now."

"_Now_ isn't a good time. I really want to take advantage of this whiny vampire free time period to take a nap. Being held hostage by mythological creatures can really take it out of you."

"You know what else can take it out of you? Trying to deal with a cantankerous old jerk that never stops complaining about _everything_."

"Touché, wolf woman. But you know what's _really_ exhausting? Trying to deal with an obsessive werewolf stalker."

"Oh really? Well maybe if you'd shut up and listen instead of acting like an asshole, you'd understand what's going on so you'd stop hiding like a scared little boy."

The Cullen's, seemingly used to Houses' antics, ignored the exchange as they darted back and forth from their mansion and garage, preparing the funds and vehicles they'd need to gather the medicine necessary to implement the human doctors treatment plan.

The wolves, however, stood rooted in place by a horrid fascination.

"This guy likes to toy with death, I guess," Quil said.

"Dude, you have no freaking idea," Jacob answered, rolling his eyes.

The doctor and the she wolf continued bickering as they strode back to the Cullen's mansion, with the Quileute's looking on silently. With a final shouted insult, House slammed the door in Leah's face.

Leah growled, long and low, before turning away from the door and seeing the Quileute eyes staring back at her.

"Can I help you with something?" She demanded, as she climbed down form the porch and advanced menacingly across the yard.

"Oh _fuck_ this…" one of the younger wolves whimpered, before phasing back into a wolf and tearing off into the woods, quickly followed by most of the others, except for Sam, the ever present Paul and Jacobs pack.

"Leah, I think we need to talk." Sam said, trying to keep his voice as toneless as possible.

"About what? Yeah, I imprinted on a complete jerk. That would be my cross to bear, huh?"

"I know it is, Leah." Jacob said moving to stand by Sam's side, "But this is different. Dr. House is about as much of an outsider as any of us could ever hope to find."

"And your little half-vampire isn't?" Leah demanded. Jacobs face froze, but he took a deep breath before speaking again;

"In a way, House is even stranger…"

"You can say that again." Emmet put in as he breezed past the assembled wolves, carrying a gym bag of cash and list of supplies from Carlisle.

"Maybe we should phase and take this someplace quieter?" Quil offered; Embry nodded in emphatically in agreement; neither were completely comfortable being around the Cullen's.

"Good idea," Seth agreed, seeing a course that would protect both his sister and his vampire friends.

Leah sent a meaningful look behind her shoulder at the Cullen's mansion.

"He'll be fine Leah." Jacob said, reading her , "We won't be gone long and most of the Cullen's are going out."

As if to under score his words, three sports cars, undamaged by House's escape attempt, sped out of the smashed doors of the garage.

"Fine." Leah agreed, "But let's keep it short."

Almost as one, the wolves phased.

The massive canines hesitated for a moment, and then dashed off into the woods.

From the windows in Edward and Bella's room in the mansion, House watched the wolves head out in silence before letting out a heavy sigh and leaning his head on the window pane.

"Something wrong, Doctor?" Bella asked from behind him; House turned to find her standing in the doorway.

"No. Don't you have some decision to be feeling insecure about?" House asked, his baleful blue eyes locking with Bella's yellow-gold irises.

"Is it possible for you to do anything but scorn everyone around you?" Edward asked, coming to his wife's side, "It gets old."

"Well, when someone around me is worth something other than scorn, I'll act accordingly."

Ignoring the byplay, Bella continued, "I know what it's like for someone you don't want to be in love with you."

House swiveled his gaze, moving with glacial slowness, back to Bella.

"What?"

"Jacob. And me. Edward…left me. For a long time. And when he did, I clung to Jacob, and Jacob…he fell in love with me. I didn't mean for or want him to, but he did. And I had to deal with that."

"You know you can feel free to not tell me everything, actually."

Ignoring the now routine negativity, Bella continued, "House, I think I know where the problem is here…"

"So there's just one now?"

"…you're in love with someone else. And you don't know if they return the feeling. I…"

House slammed his fist into the wall and whirled quickly, so fast he almost tripped over his own cane,

"Stop it. Now." He said his voice so cold it seemed to chill the air, "I don't need your help."

Bella froze, shocked at House's sudden response; his callous manner and acerbic wit she was used to. The white-hot anger he was now radiating was new and unexpected, a sudden snap she hadn't thought the human capable of.

"I have been awake…" House took a deep breath and checked his watch, "For a very long time. It's almost midnight, and I want to go to bed." House stumped off upstairs.

Distantly, Bella heard him slam the door to a bedroom upstairs.

And then she heard him drag something heavy in front of the door.

"He seems even less pleasant than normal." Edward observed, as he glided to Bella's side. Bella quickly wrapped her arms around him, hugging him fiercely, much to Edwards surprise; his mate had not been as close to him as she normally was since she'd had a one on one with House not long before that had shaken her deeply.

It seemed the human doctor had done it again.

"Bella, what's going on?"

"Nothing…nothing at all."

After one last look upstairs, Bella turned her full attention to Edward,

"So what do they need us to do?" She asked,

"The others have the supplies covered. Carlisle is going to the hospital to gather what he can from the stores there and Esme, Emmet and Rosalie are heading to Tacoma to get what they can off the black market."

"And we're staying here to watch the human?"

"Along with Jasper and Renesmee, yes."

Bella looked outside; the wolves were gone, having decided that House was either under no threat or that if he was, the world would be well rid if her family was forced to change him. She turned her gaze to the open doors of the garage;

"I think I should go to Seattle," she suddenly declared, much to Edwards surprise.

Before her husband could protest, she continued, "The doctors going to need some clothes maybe some things from his room. It might help him relax. You saw how scared he was…"

"And you could use the distance for awhile?"

"Yes."

Edward nodded and hugged his wife. "I wasn't going to try and stop you."

With a grateful smile, Bella darted to the end table, grabbed at set of car keys and ran out the door.

Edward watched her leave and then turned to his daughter.

He had heard Renesmee thoughts as the young vampire came into the room, and now he heard her unspoken question as well.

"It'll be okay. She's just shaken by something, I'm not sure what."

The little girl shrugged her shoulder in all too adult way, "Yes, probably by something the human did. I don't like him very much either, but Alice thinks he's the only one who can help."

Edward considered that for a moment; so far the human had done very little beyond berate and admonish. His scheme to use Bella's power as a way to sift through Alice's life force…(or undead force…he gave up on that train of thought), seemed far fetched, and the equally strange plan of gathering enough antibiotics to literally flood her system with them smacked of desperation rather than medical science.

He knew that the human had just encountered the supernatural for the first time, and he was deeply afraid. But even the depths of terror should not have thrown the world's best diagnostic doctor so far off his game.

Edward froze for a moment, and then tried to relax, conscious of his daughter's stare, which remained fixed upon him. But he couldn't quite hide his fear, even for her. A question had just occurred to him; what if House had no idea what he was doing at all? What if this was all for nothing?


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N-Hey guys, sorry I've been so update lazy, but I got about $120 worth of Orks for Christmas, and I've been spending most of my free time painting them up._

_In other words; I'S BEEN GETTIN' ME BOYZ READY FER' DA' SCRAP! I GOT NO TIME TA BE WASTIN WIF' NO SPRAKLIE HUMIE _**GITS**_! __**WAAAAAAAAAAAGH**__!_

_Anyway…_

_Oooh, I just had an idea for another crossover._

_This chapter gets a little crazy but I found I've had to throw in a curveball to keep myself interested. _

"Covering fire!"

"Shit, shit shit! We got gooks inna' damn wire! We gonna die, we gonna die!"

"Claymores, claymores, claymores!"  
*BOOM*

The sound of the claymores detonating rent through the muggy jungle night, snapping second lieutenant Greg House back to reality. He sat up with a start, brandishing his M-16 at the empty night air.

"El-tee! Your still alive! The el-tee's still alive, man!" a young grunt shouted nearby, as she reached up to drag House into a muddy trench.

"What…what's the situation?" House demanded,

"The situation? The situation is we're all fucked!" the grunt shouted back. In the light of a trip flare House read the name tape on the soldiers unifrom in the light of a trip flare,

"Cullen!" the wounded officer shouted, "Get your shit together! We need to find the rest of the platoon before…" House paused as he unleashed a burst of fire form his rifle into a charging Viet Cong, "…we get overrun! Now man up, trooper!"

Bella's eyes widened as she followed her lieutenant deeper into the half destroyed trench system.

"Keep you head down and your pecker hard, kid!" House shouted, ignoring the obvious problem with that statement, "One slip and they could take us all out!" The lieutenant shouted, pausing to gun down a pair of oddly sparkling Vietnamese guerillas,

"The rest of the platoon should be up ahead sir!" Bella shouted, as napalm vaporized the encroaching jungle surrounding the firebase. House blinked as the jellied gasoline flames dazzled his eyes, "We need to find a radio and report in!" he shouted back at his subordinate, "before command goes ape-shit an' nukes us all!"

House heard an angry womans voice buzzing from a nearby radio. Looking around, he found a dead radio man slumped against the trench wall,

"HOUSE! HOUSE IF YOU DON'T CALL ME I'LL EAT YOUR SOUL! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW PISSED…" the voice cut off as a mortar round landed in the trench, smashing the radio and its operator's corpse to bits.

"Shit, there'd better be another radio!" House shouted, before grabbing Bella and dragging her towards a nearby bunker,

"I can't do this! I'm scared sir! What's going on, how can I make sure this all my fault, I know I can get really angry for no reason…"

The trooper whined on and on, until House chucked her face first into the bunker and stormed in right behind.

He found a small squad gathered inside, doing their sullen best to ignore the maelstrom outside as mortar and rocket rounds rained down on the trench lines.

"Bella!" one of the grunts shouted, before dashing over to tackle the whiny trooper to the ground and press his lips to hers,

"Oh Edward! I love you so much!"

"Knock it off!" House roared, separating the lovebirds with the help of a sharp kick, 'We got us a war to win! Where's my machine gunner?"

"Yo Ell-Tee!" One of the soldiers shot to his feet, a big guy with short black hair carrying an M-60 machine gun and with an improbably large amount of ammo belts wound around his fatigues. House was happy to see that one of these troopers seemed to have his shit together,

"All right, Emmet, set up position in the main aperture and lay down suppressing fire…"

"I …uh…you what?"

House sighed in exasperation,

"Stick the machine gun out of the firing slit and shoot it a lot."

"Oh! Okay, got it boss!" Emmet motioned for his assistant gunner, a stunning blonde who had apparently decided to go to war in a French maids bonnet, fishnet stockings, stiletto heels and not much else, "Lets get her ready to go, Rose!" Emmet cheerfully declared as he began indiscriminately blasting way with his machine gun.

Satisfied as he could be, House turned to find a berserk looking trooper stairing back at him, her dark Native American feature smeared with blood and what appeared to wolfs ears sticking out of her dark hair.

"Do you need me to do anything Greg?" she asked, grinning coquettishly,

House gulped and looked down at the necklace of hears around her neck, before looking into her fawning eyes as she ran a gore-covered hand down the front of his uniform,

"Not right now, Leah." he said shivering as the woman nonetheless stood as close to him as she could get.

"Uh…Doc Carlisle!" House stammered,

"Yes?" the medic asked, haughtily.

"Casualties?"

"Just one!" Carlisle said pointing to a young dark haired girl spread out on a stretcher, with a young man dressed as confederate officer staring down at her.  
"Hell! We don't know what's wrong with her…"

"But you have to fix her." Carlisle pointed out. "I tried already."

"Hell with that! We're being overrun, I'm calling for evac, right the hell now!"

"No you're not, _Amerikaner_." A voice with an absurdly heavy German accent growled from the shadows. An eleven year old girl dressed in a full SS uniform strode up to the Lieutenant and set her hands menacingly on her hips, "You are going to stay here until we say you can leave. Until then, fix Aunt Alice!"

House grudgingly looked back down at Alice, who was now encased in a solid titanium shell.

"That's it!" he shouted, grabbing a rocket launcher off a dead VC as his bullet riddled corpse fell into the bunker, "We'll fire this at her!"

"That's a terrible idea." Carlisle shouted,

"I don't see you coming up with one! Let's consult the rest of the team, shall we?" House turned to Emmet who was still gamely fighting off the Viet Cong by himself, "Emmet, what do you think?"

"Ummm…blow her up, I guess."

"Good, Bella what…"

Bella was back on the floor, alternatively snarling at and making out with Edward.

"Sulky!" the officer roared, separating them with the toe of his left combat boot, "Get off your ass and get back to monitoring the situation like a told you to! Bella! Your opinion?"

"Whatever you guys think is best."

"But what do _you_ think?"

"Whatever you guys do, I guess."

House rolled his eyes and turned back to Carlisle as a troop of Wolves ran through the bunker, arguing with one another and snapping at the soldiers,

"Argh! I might as well be alone in this damn battle!" he shouted, "What would you people be without your damn dramatics?"

"They're important." Edward pointed out, as he crouched next to Alice, a life sign monitor flickering across his forehead,

"No they're not…"

"You should look into them."

"Look I've had enough of your stupid, high school, wannabe…" House shouted, just as a Viet Cong sapper, his pale skin sparkling in the sunlight, dragged him out of the bunker.

The American lieutenant looked up to see the vampire bare its fanged teeth before it snapped at his neck.

Dr. House gasped and sat up straight, staring uncomprehendingly at the inky blackness that surrounded him for a few moments. Blinking hard, he looked around, hands clenching the thick, gold colored bedspread that covered the bed in Bella and Edwards room of the Cullen mansion.

He slowly blew out the lungful of air.

That had been one exceptionally crazy dream, and he would most definitely _not_ be getting back to sleep. He was quite certain he didn't want to anyway.

Shaking his head his head to clear it he slid off the bed, leaning on one of the overly decorated iron posts supporting it before pushing off and getting to his feet. Scrabbling around in the darkness by the bed stand he found the lamp setting on it and switched it on. He grabbed his cane, leaned heavily on it and walked to the door, memories of that insane dream still swirling around in his head. Grunting in exertion, he pushed the heavy chest of drawers he'd barricaded the door with aside and strode into the white walled highway beyond. He limped through the seemingly empty house, savoring the sudden stillness in the air. He knew that the three vampires in the House were clustered in a room down the hall; the one called Jasper wasn't going anywhere other than the bedside of his stricken wife, Alice, while the pedantically annoying one, Edward, shouldn't be straying to far either. Not that it mattered; the skeevy little mind reader would know everything he was doing, even if he was in another part of the house.

House shuddered involuntarily. He was definitely _not_ comfortable with the thought of someone being able to see every one of his normally closely guarded thoughts. Hopefully Wilson never found out about Edward. The oncologist would move heaven, earth and a goodly portion of hell to drag the vampire back to Princeton so he could function as a permanent interpreter.

Hearing a barely audible chuckle from Alice's room, House shivered again and limped down the stairs.

He came to an abrupt halt midway down, when he found the half vampire devil girl sitting on the couch, staring up at him with a distinct lack of expression.

"Hello Dr. House. Did you sleep well?" Renesmee asked, her voice strangely toneless.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, House pulled out a bottle of Vicodin.

"Last time I saw you, you were dressed like a Nazi."

"I…what?" Renesmee asked, her formerly toneless voice suddenly sounding confused.

The doctor dry swallowed a painkiller.

"That's what Emmet said." he answered, cryptically.

Having thoroughly wrecked the teenager's attempts at vampiric creepiness, the human ambled down the remaining stairs and sat down next to her on the couch, which had been dragged across the room to face the wall House had been using to write theories on in lieu of a dry erase board.

"Breaking the case open for me?" House asked,

"Someone has to."

"Touché."

The pair sat in silence for awhile and House's mind drifted back to the insane nightmare that had been buzzing through his head earlier. The only thing that made since about was the psychotic rage filling Cuddy's voice. By now the hospital administrator's mind must be equal parts worry and rage as since the vampires had snatched him away to…wherever the this was. He was still unclear about the exact location of the vampires mansion, other than it was someplace that was as green as it was rainy. Since than, she'd had no contact with him directly, and no one else had any more idea where he was than he did.

All in all, Cuddy was probably frantic.

House smiled.

Unfortunately for her, Bella was about to find out just how perturbed Cuddy really was.

The young vampire had made her way to Seattle after the Olympic Coven had scattered to find the extensive list of pharmaceuticals and equipment their domineering human hostage had come up with to treat Alice. She was planning to go through House's room and collect some clothes and personal effects, hoping that maybe the familiar objects might help the human relax a little bit around her family, having just found out just how (understandably) afraid of them, he really was.

What she had found, after following the faded traces of his Vicodin laced scent back to his room and opening the door with a master key she'd talked a bellhop out of with almost frightening ease, was a haggard, angry woman sitting on the cheap lounge chair by the window.

"And just who the hell are you?" Cuddy demanded

Bella's eyes widened as the hospital administrator got to her feet and stormed in her direction, a feeling of indignant rage so evident on her face and in her posture that it was almost a visible aura. Without bothering to wait for Bella's answer, Cuddy continued on,

"You'd better have a very good reason for having a key to this room. In fact, you'd better have a damn good one."

"I know the man who's staying here…" if anything, Cuddy looked even angrier, and, for a moment, Bella could have sworn she saw a flicker of jealousy flash across her face.

"Oh you do, do you? And do you know where he is?"

"Maybe. What does it matter to you?" the vampire demanded, getting over her initial shock and gaining some of her confidence back,

"It matters to me because that bastard has made me look like a complete moron, skipped out on his obligations, and…"

"Having known Dr. House for all of a day and a half, I can honestly wonder why his doing all of that surprises you."

Cuddy sputtered to a halt.

"Now, I'm here to collect a few of his things to make his stay with my family a bit easier, so please…stay out of my way." the vampire growled, otherworldly menace filling her voice.

The hospital administrator promptly regained her backbone, anger filling her at being dismissed by what appeared to be no more than a teenage girl.

"You little..."

"Sit. Down." Bella snapped, hardly recognizing her own voice. This was the second time in two days she'd found a new and frightening part of her own psyche, one that lurked below the surface, waiting to leap out and assert it's dominance over weaker creatures. Her change had definitely altered more than just her body.

Cuddy promptly doubled back, not liking something she saw in the teenagers golden eyes, which had frightening, feral look to them now.

Ignoring the human, and her own conflicted feelings, Bella gathered a few items of clothing and tossed them in the small gym bag she'd brought with her from Forks.

Satisfied, she turned to leave.

"Wait." Cuddy abruptly demanded, before grabbing House's PSP carrying case, wallet and cell phone.

She handed the first two items to Bella, who tucked them into the bag without a word.

Cuddy held the phone up before she gave it to the young vampire, however.

"If he's not being held…against his will, you wouldn't mind if he gets this back, would you?"

Bella blinked, seeing how much it hurt the older woman to ask for anything, rather than order.

"Of course not."

"I'll call it in a few hours, he'd better answer. If he doesn't, I'm telling the police."

"Fine."

Bella turned to leave, but stopped in the doorframe.

"He really is a good person, under everything else he is."

"What?"

"House, I mean. I can tell you like him."

Bella left without another word, darting back down the hallway before Cuddy thought about following her.

She was just over halfway back to when her phone began to ring.

Bella was expecting Edward to call, so when she found Jacob on the other end, it came as a bit of a surprise.

"Bella! Where are you?" The panic in Jacobs voice brought the young vampire to a halt.

"Jake? What's wrong?" Her mind raced through the short list of things that could make Jacob panic, and she quickly came up with a worst case scenario.

"Is Nessie okay?" She demanded,

"What? No she's fine…" there were sounds in the background; shouts, canine yips, and a constant series of dull explosions, "But you need to get yourself to La Push. Just of the main road after you get in you'll see…oh shit, Bella, gotta go!"

The line went dead.

Bella pulled off the highway as she crossed into the wolves' territory, the gravel road shifting under the weight of the Volvo as it coasted to a stop; up ahead, she saw a pick-up truck skewed across the shoulder and into the ditch, the front end facing the wrong direction, back towards the westbound lane.

The body was twisted out of shape, dented and battered, while red smears decorated the hood and long, rough gouges ran down the driver's side door.

Claw marks.

It was clear that the wolves had been trying to get at whoever was driving, and that someone had seemed to object to the prospect.

The windshield was a mass of spider-web cracks, shattered glass and ragged, round holes.

Some distant memory of an awful action movie she had watched rose unbidden to her mind, as she recognized what the oddly linear series of holes were.

Bullet holes.

Taking a single deep, unnecessary breath, the vampire looked both directions on the highway to ensure she was alone, and stepped out of the car.

Though she could have crossed the ground separating her from the wrecked truck in a instant, some internal voice urged caution. She inhaled deeply, catching the soft smells of the forest; trees, moss, wet foliage; the sharper tangy scent of blood, both from the humans who had driven past this section of the highway, and of the animals that dwelled around it. She also caught the wet dog reek of the Quileute wolves, and something else; vampire. The sweet smell of her kind, but somehow different,not quite…right.

As Bella started to move closer to wrecked truck, the scent of wolf and vampire grew stronger with each step she took; eventually the stink was burning her nostrils so strongly she had to cover her mouth.

It smelled like every wolf in the both the packs had passed through here.

Looking down at the ground on the side of the gravel shoulder, Bella realized that was quite literally true; the grass was trampled down in dozens of crisscrossing paths, a heavy paw print was pressed into a nearby patch of mud. Following one of the trails with her eyes, Bella could see where trees and bushes at the forests edge had been snapped and broken by passing wolves. She gazed across the forest, measuring the distance and direction of the packs' movement from where they had crashed into the greenery.

The patches of broken shrubbery formed a rough line, with more heavily trampled areas on the left and right sides then in the middle.

The vampire recognized the pattern; it was one she and her family often used when they were hunting as a group. Using the center party to chase and panic the quarry, the flankers tried to get ahead of it and cut off its escape. Despite being far closer to the Quileute's than whatever unknown vampire they'd been chasing, Bella shivered at the thought of anyone being pursued in such a manner. But what could the wolves have been hunting that would require so many of them?

Jacob's call had been hasty, but he'd been very clear; there was only _one_ vampire.

How could one vampire be so dangerous that they would require the whole of the Quileute clan to chase them down?

Still moving with caution, Bella reached the pick up truck. The not quite vampire scent was even clearer here, concentrated near the smashed cab of the truck.

Bella inhaled sharply when she caught another scent, one Charlie smelled like when he came home from hunting.

Burnt sulpher.

Cordite.

Metal.

_Gunfire_.

Bella stepped on something hard and unyielding, and she looked down to find a brass shell casing. Looking around she realized that it was far from alone. Scattered around the gravel were fully two dozen or so more, long and slim, shining slightly in the dim light coming from the clouds overhead.

From the woods came a sudden eruption of noise, probably from some distance away, but Bella's heightened sense of hearing made it sound like it was just inside the tree line.

A long, staccato burst of sound, like popcorn popping turned up to eleven; a noise that had no natural place in the Washington forests.

She recognized the sound from the same half-remembered movies, TV shows and news reports that had helped her identify the bullet holes smashed into the trucks windshield.

Flinching away from the deep boom of gunfire, Bella spotted a dark, human shape pressed against the smashed vehicle and the vampire jumped when she found she was not alone.

"Get back here Bells!" Seth hissed urgently.

Throwing caution to the wind, Bella moved at her full inhuman speed as he threw herself behind cover with the young werewolf.

"What's going on Seth?" Bella demanded, crouching next to him behind the twisted ruin of the trucks bed and keeping her eyes on the wood line.

"Crazy vampire with a lot of guns." he answered, matter-of-factly.

Bella looked at him like he was insane; the _vampire_ had the guns?

The surprise must of have been obvious on her face, because Seth saw the unasked question even though it was shown with typical vampire subtlety.

"I think it was a surprise for Sam's pack, too."

"Where'd he go?" Bella asked,

"Woods, I guess. Kind of went blank there for awhile."

"What do you…" Bella started to ask, just as she finally spotted the spreading pool of blood around the young wolfs feet. "Seth! Seth what happened?" She demanded, Moving to his side so quickly that he flinched involuntarily when she appeared next to him.

"Got shot." Seth said, laconic as before, but with a pained undertone that Bella had been too distracted too notice. Now that he had her full attention, she could she that he had one hand clasped on his side, and a thick rivulet of blood was oozing down his bare flank and dripping to the ground.

"Oh my god, Seth!" Bella shouted, panic in her voice, "Why didn't you say anything?"

Seth smiled wanly,

"Was wondering how long it would take you to notice," he whispered, before sliding back against the side of the truck.


	13. Dawn of War

_A/N-Lies! All lies! No female knows of the 41__st__ Millennium! The Inquisition will know of your heresy! Anyway, my computers been trashed, just got it back from the shop, minus all of my data, so this one took a while. Getting a laptop soon, maybe that'll speed things up…_

_Also finishing this story with no beta after not writing anything for three or four months. _

_Hurrah for living on the edge. _

Bella wrapped her ice cold arms around Seths shoulders and tried to prop him back up; the young wolf was surprisingly heavy, and she grunted with effort as she gently guided him back up against the side of the crashed pickup truck.

"Seth…shouldn't this be healing faster?" Bella asked, as she looked around for something to bind Seth's gunshot wound. She glanced down, hoping to tear some cloth from the short pants Seth and most of the Quileute's wore when in human form.

She looked up quickly; Seth was naked.

"Sorry to embarrass you…" he said, grinning weakly and trying to cover himself, "Didn't have time to get changed."

"Don't worry about it," Bella answered, automatically reassuring the wounded Quileute. She reached a hand into the broken open cab of the truck, and with one pass of razor sharp vampire nails, tore off a large scrap of fabric from the trucks front seat, "But why hasn't that healed?"

"Only happened a few minutes ago…'sides, the other ones have already closed up."

Seth pointed to a few puckered scars on his leg.

"Not fun. Machine guns suck." He whispered.

Bella smiled weakly as she pressed the fabric against the wound on Seth's flank,

"Seth, why did Jake call me?" she asked.

"Wanted you to try and talk to the vamp. Maybe calm 'em down. He wanted to stop things from getting worse before someone…got killed."

"But how did this even start? Was the vampire in this truck?"

"Yeah. Paul and Embry caught the scent, gathered some of the others…tried to ambush it when it crossed the line. Sucker fought back, hard."

As if to underscore Seth's words, a loud burst of automatic gunfire echoed from the forest, followed by a resounding crash.

"Was that an explosion?" Seth asked, eye wide in surprise despite the pain.

Bella knew her face bore a similar look,

"I think so."

There was another explosion, and then silence.

Bella cautiously slipped her arm from around Seth's shoulder and peered into the green wall of the forest on the other side.

The forest suddenly erupted in movement, as a pair of dark skinned young men emerged into the roadway, half carrying-half dragging a third between them.

In one movement, Bella leapt over the truck, landing feet from the startled wolves.

"Quil! Who…" she trailed off, as the bloodied face of Sam Ulay looked up at her.

Relief and shame flooded through her; relieved that it wasn't Jacob, shame that she was happy to see someone else hurt instead of him.

"Bella,"Quil Atreyu grunted, turning to regard the Cullen with a hollow expression, "Jacob wanted to see you. Did you find him?"

"Quil…I just got here."

"Oh."

The young wolf carrying Sams other arm was new, and Bella didn't recognize him, but he explained,

"Grenade went off close by to him. I think it shook him up."

Quil vommitted and passed out.

"Yeah. Definitely." The young wolf growled, sagging under Sam's full weight.

Bella had snapped forward and caught Quil as he fell to the ground, and she gently carried him around the pickup and sat him next to Seth before helping the youngster carry Sam,

"And Sam?"

"Got shot in the legs. A few times actually. More than a few, even." The Quileute explained, dully.

"And you?" Bella asked, wondering what might be amiss with the new wolf.

He shrugged and brushed the side of his head; clotted blood matted his mane of long black hair.

"Kicked me in the head when I tried to sneak up. Hurt a lot."

Bella looked aghast,

"I bet…"  
"Jacob said to have you head in if you were here." The youngster kept talking, eyes fixed on the middle distance behind Bella, "So you should go find him."

"I will. After we make sure you guys are going to be alright."

The youngest Cullen pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. She was flipping through the list of contact for her father in law's number when abruptly stopped and let out a low voiced curse. Carlisle, like the rest of her family had scattered across the whole state to gather the supplies Dr. House needed to help Alice, and Bella had no idea how long it would take him to get back.

"Seth," Bella turned to the wounded werewolf, who was looking visibly healthier,

"Who do you guys call when someone in the pack gets hurt?"

"Uh…Carlisle?" He answered, a bit sarcastically; that was definitely something Bella should know already.

"Anyone else?"

"Carlisle's not here?"

"Nope. He's out, along with most of the rest of the coven."

"So, not only do we not have a doc, we don't have anymore reinforcements?"

Bella thought for a moment; Edward and Jasper were both at the house, but Jasper wouldn't be leaving Alice side, period. While Edward...another long burst of automatic weapons fire ripped the quiet, followed by a booming explosion that echoed through the tall pines. Edward was not getting involved in whatever was going on in those woods. Vampire or no, Bella wouldn't risk him.

"No. No we don't." Bella answered, looking down at Seth as he started to pull himself to his feet, "Can you watch them Seth?"

The werewolf hesitated for moment, and then nodded.

"Good. I'm going to find Jacob, and put a stop to this."

With that, Bella darted into the woods, with only a quick breeze to note her passing.

_Close, but not close enough, at the Cullen Mansion_

Sprawled out on an overly cushioned white recliner, Dr. Gregory House sifted through a file of hand written notes, looking for any clue that may crack the puzzle of The Living Dead Girl, as he had begun to think of his current predicament, complete with accompanying dramatic flourishes and thunder claps.

Being kidnapped by a family of deeply annoying and overly dramatic vampires tended to put the zap on ones thought process, it seemed.

House sighed and looked at the steel shuttered window.

Being held hostage sucked.

He shuffled the notes again, glancing up at the young half vampire who sat perched on the couch, staring intently at the scrawled list of symptoms and possible cause's house had drawn on the walls of the Cullen's mansion.

The human glowered at the Demon Spawn, as he had not so affectionately dubbed the young hafling. Although appearing to be barely out of her tweens, Renesmee had outsmarted him twice already, foiling both his escape attempt and his carefully cultivated psychological dominance of the Cullen Vampires and their werewolf allies, by virtue of being slightly less temperamental and twice as observant as her elders. The young lady was, in Houses estimation, the most dangerous creature he'd ever run into, counting the death row inmates and psychotic fathers he'd had to deal with. She truned to flash him a quick glare and demanded,

"Any progress?"

"You'll be the first to know."

"Good."

After the pithy exchange, House glared for a few extra moments, enough to satisfy his ego, and then returned to the handwritten page he'd been reading. Jasper Cullen's description of his talents and life was interesting, sort of, if one had any interest in the reason that one person would choose to fight for the right to two own another and treat him like cattle (and that was before he'd been turned into a vampire) , but it read like boring fiction otherwise. Enough to fire the loins of a bored housewife who set a bit to much stock in the stereotypical handsome Southern gentleman, maybe, but pretty much useless forma medical standpoint.

House sighed again, and rubbed his temples in frustration. From out of nowhere he remembered a line from the dream held been having, spoken top him by the Vietnam grunt version of Edward Cullen;

_The drama is important_

House dismissed it as nonsense, dream fluff. Pointless.

But still…

"Maybe if…" he spoke aloud, unintentionally gaining Renesmee's attention,

"Yes?' she prompted, shifting around on the couch to give house her full attention,

House gave her none of his, his eyes gazing on some distant point and ignoring his current surroundings, face blank in realization.

"If somehow they found a way past her sight, if they could…if they snuck through She-Hulks defenses…"

"Yes?" Renesmee prompted again, more urgently than before, but again , House ignored her. He looked down at the note3s one last time before discarding them to the floor.

He stood and turned slowly, eyeing the Cullen's home in its current fortified state. He thought of the scattered coven of vampires he'd dispatched to gather the now superfluous medicines he thought he'd needed to treat Alice Cullen.

He thought of just how monumentally screwed he was at the moment.

"House, what is it?" Renesmee demanded.

He fixed the little girl with his cold blues eyes.

"We're gonna need a bigger boat." He stated, enigmatically.

"What?"

"Pretty boy number two's ex has come calling."

_Back at the forest firefight_

Bella moved cautiously through the wood, peering intensely at the ground and the trees around her. The acrid reek of burnt gunpowder and explosives filled her nostrils, along with the sickly wet dog smell of werewolf blood. Besides the horrid smells of combat, there was physical evidence of a titanic fight aplenty in the green Washington woods; claw marks, paw prints and bloods spatters marked the wolves advances while the unknown vampire had left a trail of bullets holes, explosive craters, shell casing and footprints all over the forest floor, insane patterns combing the supernatural speed of the vampire and her werewolf opponents like a sick puzzle. Like a twisted dance step program; the paw prints chased the shell casing in a steady line, until the vampire found a suitable place to mount a stand; a fallen tree, a rock shelf, a stand of dense ferns. Bella recognized the pattern, but didn't understand the reasons; why would a vampire, a creature of immense physical power carry mundane human weapons like guns and explosives? She thought of Laurence the first vampire she'd seen the Quileute wolf packs exterminate. And then she guessed. Vampire or no, the person who was fighting the wolves sought an advantage beyond her supernatural strength and speed. They'd known what they were getting into, and planned ahead.

"But who would have known?" Bella mused aloud; so few vampires knew of the wolves; even the mob brought by the Volturi had been almost wiped by the Italian vampire coven, who were terrified that they'd have brought word of the Cullen's successful defiance to others.

Who then?

The sounds of combat drew close; machine gun fire, explosions, and the cries of the wolf pack. Bella sucked in an unnecessary breath and picked up her pace.

She quickly came upon the wolf pack, or what was left of it. Only a few of the Quileute's were in their wolf form; most of the others either sheltered behind trees, rocks, depressions or whatever other cover they could find, or tended the wounded, of which their was an unfortunately high amount.

"Jake?" Bella asked, unable to find her old friend among the crowd of mud and filth covered wolves,

"Bella!" Jacob Black exclaimed, from behind a boulder; he was cradling one of the younger Quileute's in his lap and pressing a clump of torn cloth and tree moss to a wound in her thigh, "You came!"

Bella darted forward, fast as lightning.

But not so fast that she didn't feel something buzz by her head like an angry hornet, before a resounding crack split the forest air.

Getting shot at was a new experience for her. She did not find it pleasant.

Throwing herself down beside Jacob with enough force to crack the boulder he was using for cover, Bella's let loose with a string of curses as the gunfire suddenly intensified.

"Jeez Bells…" Jacob said, grinning slightly.

"Jacob…_what the _hell_ is going on_."

"Dunno. You should ask gun lady." Jacob carefully lifted the makeshift dressing and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the young girls wound had almost completely healed.

"Gun Lady? Who's Gun Lady?"

Jacob sighed, before shouting,

"_Hey, Gun Lady! Truce?_"

Silence before the melodious voice of a vampire rang out;

"_Yiff in hell, Furfag!"_

Jacob ground his jaw together,

"We got a nice vampire for you too talk to. Is that up to your standards?"

"That the moron I just took a shot at?"

"Yeah."

"Fine. Send her over, nice and slow, arms to her sides, palms open."

Bella glowered at Jacob,  
"At what point did I agree to that?"

"Well, you want to end this before further blood is shed don't you? Someone might get killed…"

Bella sighed.

"Fine."

She got to her feet before cautiously, ready at any moment to leap for cover, wondering if vampires could move faster than bullets.

She took a step, and when nothing happened, slowly took another.

Growing more confidant with each step, she walked forward across a small clearing in the wall of green. When she got to the other side, she found herself in the midst of an overgrown thicket of trees. She looked around, searching for the vampire who'd held off the Quileute wolves for three hours.

She saw nothing.

And then a clump of moss and bracken erupted outward, spattering her clothes with filth, before something smashed into her and sent her sprawling to the ground, pinning her.

Bella found herself staring up into the bright red eyes of a new born vampire.

"You a Cullen?" the sickly sweet voice seemed to ooze out from her lips. Bella hesitated, mesmerized by the absolute focus that had no business existing in a newborn vampires eyes.

Bella felt something cold and metal press into her forehead.

"Cullen?"

"Yes."

The new born's dark green painted face split with a wide grin.

"Good."


End file.
